m II schrieb:

I'm assuming Grundig was sold to it's new present owners in the last few
years. Then the decline started. In an attempt to fatten the bottom line
in the quickest possible time, they started cutting corners very
severely. It may be coming back to bite them on the ass. Twice!

Grundig USA a.k.a. Lextronix a.k.a. Etón never had that much to do with
the European company (the radio/TV etc. related parts of which were sold
to the UK based Alba and Turkey based Beko early this year but which had
been going downhill for a long time). The last "European" Grundig SW
receivers were the Yacht Boy 500 and Satellit 700 (along with the 900
that was not to be), along with the Yacht Boy 360 which was an
interesting hybrid of Fürth style docs - I have a service manual - and
typically Asian innards (Japanese transistors etc.). The YB 400 was a
Grundig USA product, suspected to have been made by Sangean. Current
Etón/Grundig USA radios are just slightly adapted Tecsun models. The
Satellit 800 is a rather interesting beast as it involves both Tecsun
and Drake (with the former producing it and the latter having developed
the SW8's circuitry which gets used to a large extent).

The Germany-based Grundig IMHO was strongest in the early to mid, maybe
still late 80s. I have an FM tuner from this period, a T 7500 - it may
not have the high quality looks of others and lacks a few features
(switchable bandwidth, attenuator), but sonically beat the pants off a
Revox costing almost three times as much in those days ('83 or so). (And
it allowed entering 4-digit alpha tags for stations and had an 8-segment
signal strength display that was pretty much exactly logarithmic, both
not really features expected in a tuner with little more than a
middle-class price tag.) The thing is solidly built, the only point
where they cut costs a bit too much was the rectifier for the +5V
supply, which was a historic selenium type (!) notorious for failing.
Now guess what went south two hours after I got the thing...
Fortunately, this is good ol' macroscopic technology and not tiny SMD
stuff.
But, err, I digress.

Stephan
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Stephan Grossklass wrote:


But, err, I digress.

Not at all..

Good post. It's nice to read a bit of that company's history. There must
be some silicon type replacements for the rectifier, no?




mike

m II schrieb:

Stephan Grossklass wrote:

But, err, I digress.

Not at all..

Good post. It's nice to read a bit of that company's history. There must
be some silicon type replacements for the rectifier, no?

Yes, of course. Any ordinary silicon bridge rectifier in DIP will do
just fine (and, given it's totally oversized for 9.8 V ~ and about 100
mA, should do its job for a loooooong time). At least this experience
has expanded my list of potentially critical (read: best replaced)
components in old radios to (a) paper caps and electrolytics and (b)
selenium rectifiers. Now all I need is a *decent* soldering iron and the
tube radio that should hopefully arrive within the next few days / weeks
/ eternities - though the Grundig Signal 700 could use some service as
well (some humming, switches with contact probs and such - it's 30 years
old after all and has probably never undergone servicing).

Stephan
--
Meine Andere Seite: http://stephan.win31.de/
PC#6: i440BX, 2xP3-500E, 512 MiB, 18+80 GB, R9k AGP 64 MiB, 110W
This is a SCSI-inside, Legacy-plus, TCPA-free computer

Stephan Grossklass wrote:


Yes, of course. Any ordinary silicon bridge rectifier in DIP will do
just fine (and, given it's totally oversized for 9.8 V ~ and about 100
mA, should do its job for a loooooong time). At least this experience
has expanded my list of potentially critical (read: best replaced)
components in old radios to (a) paper caps and electrolytics and (b)
selenium rectifiers. Now all I need is a *decent* soldering iron and the
tube radio that should hopefully arrive within the next few days / weeks
/ eternities - though the Grundig Signal 700 could use some service as
well (some humming, switches with contact probs and such - it's 30 years
old after all and has probably never undergone servicing).

Struggled with a 15 watt pencil iron for years. I hated the heavy
pistol grip 100/150 watt copper wire tipped guns. Way too awkward.
I finally broke down and bought a 35 watt pencil iron and it works very
well. I find the hotter tip spends a lot less time on the work, so in
the long run, it's most likely easier on the components than the smaller
iron was.

I've used the thermostatically controlled Weller cradle type and it was
very nice..but I couldn't justify the extra expense for the relatively
few joints I solder at a time.



mike

Stephan Grossklass wrote:

m II schrieb:

Stephan Grossklass wrote:

But, err, I digress.

Not at all..

Good post. It's nice to read a bit of that company's history. There must
be some silicon type replacements for the rectifier, no?

Yes, of course. Any ordinary silicon bridge rectifier in DIP will do
just fine (and, given it's totally oversized for 9.8 V ~ and about 100
mA, should do its job for a loooooong time). At least this experience
has expanded my list of potentially critical (read: best replaced)
components in old radios to (a) paper caps and electrolytics and (b)
selenium rectifiers. Now all I need is a *decent* soldering iron and the
tube radio that should hopefully arrive within the next few days / weeks
/ eternities - though the Grundig Signal 700 could use some service as
well (some humming, switches with contact probs and such - it's 30 years
old after all and has probably never undergone servicing).

Stephan

When replacing a selenium rectifier (bridge) with a silicon type you
should allow for the fact that the circuit was designed for the greater
forward resistance of the selenium. Otherwise the voltage output of the
silicon rectifier(s) won't be the same as it was with the selenium. This
may require adding a voltage dropping resistor.


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Stephan Grossklass wrote:

The Germany-based Grundig IMHO was strongest in the early to mid, maybe
still late 80s. I have an FM tuner from this period, a T 7500 - it may
not have the high quality looks of others and lacks a few features
(switchable bandwidth, attenuator), but sonically beat the pants off a
Revox costing almost three times as much in those days ('83 or so). (And
it allowed entering 4-digit alpha tags for stations and had an 8-segment
signal strength display that was pretty much exactly logarithmic, both
not really features expected in a tuner with little more than a
middle-class price tag.) The thing is solidly built, the only point
where they cut costs a bit too much was the rectifier for the +5V
supply, which was a historic selenium type (!) notorious for failing.
Now guess what went south two hours after I got the thing...
Fortunately, this is good ol' macroscopic technology and not tiny SMD
stuff.
But, err, I digress.

Stephan

A selenium rectifier in a twenty year old solid state radio? I haven't
seen a selenium used in anything for more than thirty years, probably
close to forty.


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