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#21
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wrote in message ups.com... wrote: My wife and son are both E.E.'s and their explanation is that IC's begin to degrade slowly as a result of impurituies in the wafer. Simple components like capacitors dry out and resistors begin to open up. Wish I knew more, but I can hear what they tell me in the radios I've owned. I owned one of the comparison radios, the Panasonic RF5000b. Big beast of a 24 pound radio with four antennas. It was pretty insensitive by any measure. Sure it would catch the big nighttime SW's but that was about it. Other radios, such as a Radio Shack DX150b were still pretty sensitive (and still raspy sounding) after 25 years, so the rate of degradation isn't a constant. I'm not an EE, but I do fix electronics as a hobby. In my experience, degraded (but not totally dead) ICs or transistors are among the least likely failures and failed semiconductors are almost always caused by exposure to excess voltage such as static discharge or funky power supplies, reversed voltage or drawing excess current through them. Spilled liquids can be a menace. Bigger problems are poor solder joints, dried up electrolytics, cracked circuit boards, drifted carbon composition resistors and home handyman alignments. If you're looking for esoteric failure modes, don't forget tin whiskers. Tin plated conductors, such as the leads on most IC packs, can grow fine whiskers from the tin plated leads which might short out adjacent pins. The most likely parts to fail on tube radios are paper capacitors, electrolytic capacitors and carbon comp resistors. Tubes age as well, but they're usually OK. Frank Dresser |
#22
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Yes, for many electronic appliances it ultimately comes down to a
cost-to-repair vs cost-to-replace comparison. And since the relative price of most new electronic goods continues to drop many older electronic appliances become disposable. I remember my parents taking household appliances like a tube-powered clock radio or a mixer in for repair. Today if the appliance dies it is just replaced. I'm trying to think of where a TV, Radio or small appliance repair shop might be in my area, but I'm drawing a complete blank. Times have changed. running dogg wrote: Michael Lawson wrote: wrote in message ups.com... wrote: My wife and son are both E.E.'s and their explanation is that IC's begin to degrade slowly as a result of impurituies in the wafer. Simple components like capacitors dry out and resistors begin to open up. Wish I knew more, but I can hear what they tell me in the radios I've owned. I owned one of the comparison radios, the Panasonic RF5000b. Big beast of a 24 pound radio with four antennas. It was pretty insensitive by any measure. Sure it would catch the big nighttime SW's but that was about it. Other radios, such as a Radio Shack DX150b were still pretty sensitive (and still raspy sounding) after 25 years, so the rate of degradation isn't a constant. Do a net search on "eletro-migration". Over time the electrons carry some of the ions that make junctions either P or N. Electro-migration increases with heat, I think it doubles for every 3C degree increase. This is why overclocking CPUs cn lead to unexpected failures. So, does that mean it might not be a bad idea to do some restoration work (or have it done) on the newer radios when they reach 20 years or so, sort of like the older tube radios?? I imagine that the caps last longer than the old paper caps or black beauties, but fixing up an R-70 or an FRG-7700 (if in otherwise decent shape) hadn't occured to me before. You can't restore ICs, of course, but you can replace auxilary transistors, capacitors, resistors, etc. I know that some of the older transistorized clock radios (the ones made in Japan prior to the microchip age) tended to have the radio die gradually over time. This happened prior to the motor which flipped the numbers dying. I know that happened to an old 1971 Juliette which was my first radio. The radio gradually got weaker and weaker and finally went silent, then the numbers stopped turning. Those clock radios were pretty cheaply made and were not worth restoring, but a tabletop SW radio like a 7700 would definitely be worth restoring if it was otherwise pretty good. ----== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com - Unlimited-Uncensored-Secure Usenet News==---- http://www.newsfeeds.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! 120,000+ Newsgroups ----= East and West-Coast Server Farms - Total Privacy via Encryption =---- |
#23
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I have a will,it is all legal and binding too.In fact,years ago I went
to one of those crooked lawyers (all lawyers are crooks,but of course y'all already knew that) and got it all did up legal.When I croak,anything my sister and brother in law doesn't want of mine,(and I doubt if they would want to have any of my old junk) an old buddy of mine can have what he wants. cuhulin |
#24
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Sort of like buying a secondhand computer,It will probally need some
sort of repair work and definetly reprograming dpending on what sort of operating system it has/had and what sort of operating system one wants to install in the computer. cuhulin |
#27
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wrote:
Yes, for many electronic appliances it ultimately comes down to a cost-to-repair vs cost-to-replace comparison. And since the relative price of most new electronic goods continues to drop many older electronic appliances become disposable. This is true. The only exception to this that I can think of would be limited market electronics like tabletop SW radios. I've had my Yaesu FRG-8800 fixed twice since I bought it. It arrived with a broken freq/clock switch, since it was packed in wadded up newspaper. It also had a certain resistor die (apparently a common problem) a couple years after that. The cost to fix both these problems, and the cost to buy it used of course (about $200, what I paid for the 2010 that I traded for it) is still far less than the cost of a new Drake R8B. But tabletops are the exception to the rule. Most mass market consumer electronics are disposable, a trend that started in the 50s with the first transistor radios. Computers, on the other hand, are still worth fixing, at least until they get truly obsolete. And computers are different in that they have software problems even if they don't have any hardware problems. JS Computers are usually worth fixing, but the fix these days is replacement of a module, not replacing electronic or mechanical components.. I remember my parents taking household appliances like a tube-powered clock radio or a mixer in for repair. Today if the appliance dies it is just replaced. I'm trying to think of where a TV, Radio or small appliance repair shop might be in my area, but I'm drawing a complete blank. Times have changed. In an era when consumer electronics are so cheap, when you can get a clock radio for $7.99, it doesn't make any sense to have stuff fixed. I was looking through newspaper microfilm of papers printed when I was born (1974), and I came across an ad for an IC run Panasonic clock radio-for $39.95! That was a lot of money 30 years ago. Today, the maximum you'll spend for an all digital, two alarm Sony clock radio is $25, even though the dollar has lost much of its value, and if you want to go to Kmart you can get a clock radio for much less, as I noted. Even TVs are cheap-a 20" color TV costs about $150, compared to twice that in 1974. JS That's a perfect example of why the few TV repair guys left in the business are pretty lonely these days. Another factor contributing to their loneliness is that the TV's (and other consumer products) are much more reliable these days. That prices have come down in absolute and relative terms can be seen in the 27 inch TV. It was once an expensive top-end size 20 years ago, but is an entry level size these days and is priced accordingly. |
#28
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It's an auction. People bid on items placed there. Whoever bids the highest by time the auction ends gets the item. Understand now? wrote in message oups.com... http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...5895 535&rd=1 |
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