Serviced in ’77
September 24, 2006Dan No Comments »As a few of you may know, my trusty Heathkit receiver gave up the ghost a little while back. The title of this post is taken from a sticker on the bottom. Almost 30 years ago, someone was tinkering around inside it trying to make it work right. I wouldn’t mind replacing the whole unit (it is 10 years older than I am, after all), but the amplifier I would like to replace it with will cost me around $150. I don’t really want to spend that, so it is sitting open on my workbench right now.
The electronic component you see in the center of the above photo is a capacitor. It belongs to the power amplifier inside of my stereo. If you think it doesn’t look very healthy, you are very much correct. Besides the nasty corrosion (the teal-blue color), you’ll notice the black rubber cap on the capacitor is popped out of the aluminum body, where it would normally reside. Capacitors will do this for many reasons, but the most common is because of high heat. Running current backwards through them will cause this to happen in a hurry. In this case, I think old age is mostly the culpret. I have new capacitors on order from mcm and am looking forward to the triumphant return of my slightly antique receiver. FYI, the one pictured above is actually not the one that caused my receiver to stop powering up. See if you can pick it out on the power supply board (it’s not the big one on the bottom, though that doesn’t look too good either).
There’s not much else going on for other news. Chris and I replaced the front rotors and brake pads on my car. The brakes were getting pretty bad. It is so much nicer now. And I’m still working on getting a ‘fish cam’ link on this website.
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