I suppose you could do that. I've had very few problems with Tants of that era - definitely less than electrolytics. I think in some cases there may have been some underestimation of their tolerance for surges (recalling early Fosgate car stereo amps that were notorious for popping Tants in the power supply section). It bothered me more that there were a couple of them in the RX audio path, but that's a different issue. They've been running this long without issues, so lacking a documented deterioration mode like electrolytics I choose to leave well enough alone That filter electro in the DC-DC converter is another story. It can cause some strange issues when failing, and I consider it a mandatory replacement.
A lot of Drakes have been running a lot of years with those Tantalums. To each his own. 73 -Jim NU0C On Fri, 29 Jun 2012 20:21:12 -0700, Dennis Monticelli wrote: >Tantalums of that era are not as reliable as their modern >equilvalents. When a tanalum fails it usually shorts. Modern >tantalums have built in fuses to limit the fireworks should a failure >occur. High quality test equipment from the TR-7 era or earlier often >have issues with tantalums and I know of people that will routinely >replace all of them once they are into the instrument. Owners of >KWM-380's will do the same thing. > >Dennis AE6C > >On 6/29/12, Brian Koontz <[email protected]> wrote: >> On Fri, Jun 29, 2012 at 03:56:26PM -0500, Jim Shorney wrote: >>> You may find this of interest. A VERY worthwhile upgrade, highly >>> recommended: >>> >>> http://members.ziggo.nl/cmulder/drake.htm#bookmark5 >>> >>> Also, replace the electrolytic cap(s) while you are working on the PS >>> board. >>> You will be glad you did. That may be the source of your +25 problem >>> anyway. >>> Any Tantalums can be left as is, they should be OK. >> >> I had a tantalum cap on my PS literally explode...I was very >> surprised, figured that was a rare event. But not rare enough to >> replace all of them? (I went ahead and did anyways...) >> >> --Brian/WA3ITE >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Drakelist mailing list >> [email protected] >> http://mailman.zerobeat.net/mailman/listinfo/drakelist >> -- Ham Radio NU0C Lincoln, Nebraska, U.S.S.A. TR7/RV7/R7A/L7, TR6/RV6, T4XC/R4C/L4B, NCL2000, SB104A, R390A, GT550A/RV550A, HyGain 3750, IBM PS/2 - all vintage, all the time! "Give a man a URL, and he will learn for an hour; teach him to Google, and he will learn for a lifetime." HyGain 3750 User's Group - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HyGain_3750/ http://incolor.inetnebr.com/jshorney http://www.nebraskaghosts.org _______________________________________________ Drakelist mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.zerobeat.net/mailman/listinfo/drakelist
