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Old December 25th 03, 07:54 PM
geojunkie
 
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Default Old Paper Caps - Are they Always Bad?

I have several postings here about an SX-101a I am restoring. Up to
now I have done consumer radios, TVs, and an SX-71. I found the
majority of the paper caps (wax or molded) to be bad in them. By bad,
I found them to be out of tolerance (usually reading high on my old
60hz reactance bridge meter) and showing significant leakage at rated
voltage. So now I start on the SX-101a and wouldn't you know it the
first 4 paper caps I pulled check perfectly in all respects. These do
appear to be a much higher quality cap than those I have seen to date,
but paper they are. So if 4 out of 4 are good, do I need to replace
all the paper caps in this unit? Perhaps this radio never saw much
humidity, and coupling that with higher quality parts they might still
be just fine. I am tempted to reinstall the ones I just pulled to keep
the vintage look. I really don't know how to test the caps in circuit
individually unless I pull one lead, and then you are half way to
replaced anyway, so if there is high likelyhood of some bad ones out
there, I might as well replace them all. Are there certain circuit
locations more prone to fail? I have stopped further work until I get
some feedback on this.

Dan