Death of A Cap

[thebes]

He was giving me lip so I took out my gatt and drilled him good.

Nah, nothing so exciting. I was listening to the Heresy's
one night a couple of weeks ago and there was a lound spark
sound. After that the system sounded harsh and shrill, bottom end
was reduced. Narrowed the problem down my Conrad Johnson PV3 but
further testing, and my limited skills produced no obvious culprits.

So I picked up the phone to Craig to arrange a repair
job, to which he replied, send me some pcitures and a copy of the
schematic. He reviews them, gives me a call and says it's probably
either a cracked tube socket or something in the power supply
end. Upon further examination I notice a little piece of rubber
near one of the grounding tabs on the multi-can for the power
supply. I scrape it away and there is a little hole there.
I'm thinking the can is fried, relate my findings to Craig and he
informs me that the better cans have a little pressure release hole so
it's probably is fried. He very kindly tracks down an appropriate
can and two other caps that he suggests I replace at the same time for
a complete upgrade of the power supply.

Charge: Zero.

Craig does this type of thing so often for people that it's
hardly remarked upon. However, I for one very much appreciate his
generosity and wanted to publicly thank him for his help and
knowledge.

The new parts will be here in a few days and we'll see how she sounds.

In the meantime, the geeky part of me like to take things apart,
not that I ahve any idea what I'm looking at after I do it. Of course,
when re-assembled there always seems to be parts left over.

So I pull out my trusty saw and get to work. Pretty
cool. This is one of those aluminum cans that you see on the top
of most gear and has three capacitor values. In the first picture
all you can see is what looks like a roll of paper.

[thebes]

In this picture what is revealed is a thin roll of foil, so this must

be a film and foil cap whatever that is. I start unwinding this

stuff looking for what I had assumed would be three little capacitors,

like those orange job thingys.

[thebes]

Well I unravel the whole thing, pry apart stuff and no caps. Oh,

oh, I'm thinking maybe I just ruined a perfectly good can.

[thebes]

So I start looking closer and there is one area where the foil has
been melted and the paper (film?) is discolored so I assume tht's what
went wrong. It's the area in the upper left hand corner of the picture.
Hardly as dramatic as I'd envisioned but still my inner-geek is pleased.

Now if I can only get it back together.

[colterphoto1]

"Now if I can only get it back together. "

classic Thebes- you're one-of-a-kind!

M

[Tarheel]

You crack me up Thebes...between you and Meagains avatar the forum is always good for a laugh. Keep it up[Y]

Chuck

[pauln]

Don't lick your fingers after handling that thing...

[thebes]

Don't lick your fingers after handling that thing...

Uh, oh. didn't lick anything but I did sratch something if you know what I mean. What did I do now?

[ByteWrangler]

The first time I tried Szechuan cooking I discovered you want to wash your hands before using the bathroom!

[hwatkins]

Don't lick your fingers after handling that thing...

Uh, oh. didn't lick anything but I did sratch something if you know what I mean. What did I do now?

Well - if you can lick what you scratched you have my uptmost admiration........

[NOSValves]

Thebes,

Thanks for the recognition!! But honestly you may of wanted to wait until the thing actually works properly again. I'm really going to regret reading the thread saying I wasted $50 of your money, ten hours time and you got some radio active desease as a bonus[]

Your way to much like me I have cut the old NOS cans apart and the brand new modern replacements apart just to see if they make them differently. Nope.......... I've done the same too many coupling caps of various cost also.

Craig