I recently purchased an old GE Superradio - 7-2880b

It's a standard practice with old stereo gear that you go in and do a wholesale
replacement of all the electrolytic caps. They dry out and create noise.

Is there any standard regime to expect with this old radio? Is there a refurbish due? Seems to work just great.

Thanks.

On 5/16/2015 5:08 PM, wrote:
I recently purchased an old GE Superradio - 7-2880b

It's a standard practice with old stereo gear that you go in and do a wholesale
replacement of all the electrolytic caps. They dry out and create noise.

When the electrolytics go, it's not really noise but rather a loud hum.
You WILL know if/when they go bad.

Is there any standard regime to expect with this old radio? Is there a refurbish due? Seems to work just great.

"Seems to work just great"?

If it ain't broke, don't fix it...

On Sat, 16 May 2015, Joe from Kokomo wrote:

On 5/16/2015 5:08 PM, wrote:
I recently purchased an old GE Superradio - 7-2880b

It's a standard practice with old stereo gear that you go in and do a
wholesale
replacement of all the electrolytic caps. They dry out and create noise.

When the electrolytics go, it's not really noise but rather a loud hum. You
WILL know if/when they go bad.

That would be the case with tube radios, where most of the few
electrolytics are in the power supply. A bad electrolytic wouldn't filter
the AC line sufficiently, so you'd get hum.

But eletrolytics were also used to bypass the cathodes in the audio
stages, and if those went bad, there'd be less audio gain.

With transistors, it's more complicated. Run off batteries, you'd never
know that the filter capacitor is bad.

The emitter bypass electrolytics would mean lower gain.

But, since transistor radios are low voltage, "high" current, it gets more
complicated. Electrolytics would keep the "B+" line low impedance, if
one there goes bad, it can mean oscillation, that motorboating people talk
about.

A transistor radio has more electrolytics than a tube radio.

Michael


Is there any standard regime to expect with this old radio? Is there a
refurbish due? Seems to work just great.

"Seems to work just great"?

If it ain't broke, don't fix it...