1950s TVS!, and tube radios!

[AiboPet]

GREAT pic of "look for any that look swolen...or are sitting oddly on the board" I had posted in another thread about a generic 5" set (forget where I posted that).

Your pic is a GREAT example of pretty much BOTH of those conditions. It's too bad only really these type of electrolytics do this very obvious fail. The rest....I am sorta having to GUESS..since I do not yet have a capacitor checker.

Is an "ESR" meter really even sufficient to test the "big" caps? I ask...because I have seen that in order to check a cap correctly, you have to be able to CHARGE it to it's rated voltage. No way the little ESR meters I see with (I assume a 9V battery) can do this?

I would get one for pretty much MOST the little solid state stuff I play with...but it seems not sufficient to have even a "good" meter with a capacitor checking section on the dial.

Unless of course...I am wrong. Most the little "micro" sets I work with have electrolytics (just like these in most cases)...rated to maybe 16v-50v or so. Only place I have been running into "big boy" caps...are the big old Sony solid state sets ("big" being relative....since my "big" sets are 9" sets). The Sony sets with these bigger caps almost ALWAYS exhibit linearity and horizontal stability problems. I tend to recap them in a "shotgun" fashion without being able to really check 'em.