Re: [time-nuts] Noisy Sulzer 2.5 - Suggestions?

[paul swed]

Chuck
I know those capacitors and you are right they were very high quality way
back when. Really interesting on the whiskers. I have seen them on other
parts.
What is it the tin leaching out. I guess the funny thing was that I have
seen them before and just brushed them off and continued troubleshooting.
Regards
Paul
WB8TSL

On Thu, Aug 18, 2016 at 2:46 PM, Chuck Harris  wrote:

> Hi Ed,
>
> Nope.  I just brushed off the growth, and blew the whole
> assembly down with compressed air.  The whiskers were
> huge!  I think they were capacitively coupling with the
> ground bits, and since their size and number varied in
> an uncontrolled way, they affected the frequency in an
> unstable way.
>
> These white cube shaped capacitors are something high
> quality.  The white color is a porcelain glaze that protects
> the capacitor, and the wires seemed to be connected to
> some sort of sintered silver area on the body.
>
> -Chuck Harris
>
> Ed Palmer wrote:
> > That's not something I would have expected.  Did you have to unsolder
> the capacitors
> > to clean them up?
> >
> > Ed
> >
> > On 2016-08-18 10:00 AM, time-nuts-requ...@febo.com wrote:
> >> My old 2.5A was acting up in strange drifty ways.  I opened the oven,
> and found
> >> that all of the white cube shaped ceramic capacitors in the oscillator
> were covered
> >> with fuzz on the electrode ends.  I am guessing that they were growing
> a great
> >> tin whisker beard.  I cleaned it all off, and performance improved
> greatly.
> >>
> >> -Chuck Harris
> >>
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Re: [time-nuts] Noisy Sulzer 2.5 - Suggestions?

[Chuck Harris]

Hi Ed,

Nope.  I just brushed off the growth, and blew the whole
assembly down with compressed air.  The whiskers were
huge!  I think they were capacitively coupling with the
ground bits, and since their size and number varied in
an uncontrolled way, they affected the frequency in an
unstable way.

These white cube shaped capacitors are something high
quality.  The white color is a porcelain glaze that protects
the capacitor, and the wires seemed to be connected to
some sort of sintered silver area on the body.

-Chuck Harris

Ed Palmer wrote:
> That's not something I would have expected.  Did you have to unsolder the 
> capacitors
> to clean them up?
> 
> Ed
> 
> On 2016-08-18 10:00 AM, time-nuts-requ...@febo.com wrote:
>> My old 2.5A was acting up in strange drifty ways.  I opened the oven, and 
>> found
>> that all of the white cube shaped ceramic capacitors in the oscillator were 
>> covered
>> with fuzz on the electrode ends.  I am guessing that they were growing a 
>> great
>> tin whisker beard.  I cleaned it all off, and performance improved greatly.
>>
>> -Chuck Harris
>>
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Re: [time-nuts] Noisy Sulzer 2.5 - Suggestions?

[Ed Palmer]

On 2016-08-18 10:00 AM, paul swed  wrote:

Ed,
Thats quite the challenge and yes the carbon resistors must be about 50
years old now. So questioning them is reasonable. I have a c so take my
next comment with caution.
The oscillator is a small circuit and then it runs to buffers and
multipliers and stuff.


That's one of the differences between the 2.5 and the 2.5x models. The 
2.5 only has 2.5 MHz and lower outputs so no multipliers. Hopefully, the 
other circuit blocks are more or less the same.



Lots of parts of every type. Maybe it makes sense to isolate and measure
just the oscillator circuit to see how it behaves without all of the other
stuff. Also there were various regulators in that can.


Yes, noise on the internal voltage regulator would affect everything.  I 
might replace all the Ta capacitors 'just because', but beyond that, 
divide and conquer makes a lot of sense.


Ed


Lots of possibilities for trouble. But also worth the effort to figure it out.
Great old oscillators.
Regards
Paul
WB8TSL


On Wed, Aug 17, 2016 at 4:25 PM, Ed Palmer  wrote:


>I picked up a Sulzer 2.5 (not 2.5A or 2.5B or 2.5C) oscillator and 5P
>power supply.  It's working, but the AlDev at low tau is poor. After a few
>days of operation the AlDev @ 1sec. is only 1e-10.  It's not the power
>supply.  I'm running under 'AC fail' conditions with a lab power supply
>standing in for the batteries.  This bypasses almost everything in the
>power supply.  Eventually, I plan to replace the batteries with lead-acid
>and replace the circuit board with an improved circuit.
>
>So, I'll be opening up the oscillator to see what's what.  My first 'usual
>suspect' will be the Ta capacitors, but I'm wondering about all those
>carbon composition resistors.  Should I be looking at a wholesale
>replacement with metal film?  Maybe just in the oscillator and AVC areas?
>Are there any other known trouble spots with these oscillators?
>
>I haven't been able to find any info on the 2.5.  The manuals and
>schematics for the 5A and the 2.5B/C are some help, but the 2.5 is very
>different from the 2.5B/C.  Any info would be greatly appreciated.
>
>Thanks,
>
>Ed


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Re: [time-nuts] Noisy Sulzer 2.5 - Suggestions?

[Ed Palmer]

That's not something I would have expected.  Did you have to unsolder 
the capacitors to clean them up?


Ed

On 2016-08-18 10:00 AM, time-nuts-requ...@febo.com wrote:

My old 2.5A was acting up in strange drifty ways.  I opened the oven, and found
that all of the white cube shaped ceramic capacitors in the oscillator were 
covered
with fuzz on the electrode ends.  I am guessing that they were growing a great
tin whisker beard.  I cleaned it all off, and performance improved greatly.

-Chuck Harris

Ed Palmer wrote:

I picked up a Sulzer 2.5 (not 2.5A or 2.5B or 2.5C) oscillator and 5P power 
supply.It's working, but the AlDev at low tau is poor. After a few days of 
operation theAlDev @ 1sec. is only 1e-10.  It's not the power supply.  I'm 
running under 'AC fail'conditions with a lab power supply standing in for the 
batteries.  This bypassesalmost everything in the power supply.  Eventually, I 
plan to replace the batterieswith lead-acid and replace the circuit board with 
an improved circuit.

So, I'll be opening up the oscillator to see what's what.  My first 'usual 
suspect'will be the Ta capacitors, but I'm wondering about all those carbon 
compositionresistors.  Should I be looking at a wholesale replacement with 
metal film?  Maybejust in the oscillator and AVC areas?  Are there any other 
known trouble spots withthese oscillators?

I haven't been able to find any info on the 2.5.  The manuals and schematics 
for the5A and the 2.5B/C are some help, but the 2.5 is very different from the 
2.5B/C.  Anyinfo would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Ed


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Re: [time-nuts] Noisy Sulzer 2.5 - Suggestions?

[Chuck Harris]

My old 2.5A was acting up in strange drifty ways.  I opened the oven, and found
that all of the white cube shaped ceramic capacitors in the oscillator were 
covered
with fuzz on the electrode ends.  I am guessing that they were growing a great
tin whisker beard.  I cleaned it all off, and performance improved greatly.

-Chuck Harris

Ed Palmer wrote:
> I picked up a Sulzer 2.5 (not 2.5A or 2.5B or 2.5C) oscillator and 5P power 
> supply. 
> It's working, but the AlDev at low tau is poor. After a few days of operation 
> the
> AlDev @ 1sec. is only 1e-10.  It's not the power supply.  I'm running under 
> 'AC fail'
> conditions with a lab power supply standing in for the batteries.  This 
> bypasses
> almost everything in the power supply.  Eventually, I plan to replace the 
> batteries
> with lead-acid and replace the circuit board with an improved circuit.
> 
> So, I'll be opening up the oscillator to see what's what.  My first 'usual 
> suspect'
> will be the Ta capacitors, but I'm wondering about all those carbon 
> composition
> resistors.  Should I be looking at a wholesale replacement with metal film?  
> Maybe
> just in the oscillator and AVC areas?  Are there any other known trouble 
> spots with
> these oscillators?
> 
> I haven't been able to find any info on the 2.5.  The manuals and schematics 
> for the
> 5A and the 2.5B/C are some help, but the 2.5 is very different from the 
> 2.5B/C.  Any
> info would be greatly appreciated.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Ed
> 
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Re: [time-nuts] Noisy Sulzer 2.5 - Suggestions?

[Ed Palmer]

I was expecting, and I'm seeing, improvements at high values of tau 
(i.e. aging) as time passes, but I've never noticed an improvement at 
low tau on any of my oscillators.  Probably because my measuring 
equipment isn't good enough to see it!  I'll watch for that in the future.


Ed

On 2016-08-17 7:03 PM, Bob Camp  wrote:

Hi

Let it run for a month before you worry much about measuring what it is doing ….
Some (but not all) of those old crystals took a while to settle in.

Bob



>On Aug 17, 2016, at 4:25 PM, Ed Palmer  wrote:
>
>I picked up a Sulzer 2.5 (not 2.5A or 2.5B or 2.5C) oscillator and 5P power 
supply.  It's working, but the AlDev at low tau is poor. After a few days of 
operation the AlDev @ 1sec. is only 1e-10.  It's not the power supply.  I'm 
running under 'AC fail' conditions with a lab power supply standing in for the 
batteries.  This bypasses almost everything in the power supply.  Eventually, I 
plan to replace the batteries with lead-acid and replace the circuit board with an 
improved circuit.
>
>So, I'll be opening up the oscillator to see what's what.  My first 'usual 
suspect' will be the Ta capacitors, but I'm wondering about all those carbon 
composition resistors.  Should I be looking at a wholesale replacement with metal 
film?  Maybe just in the oscillator and AVC areas?  Are there any other known 
trouble spots with these oscillators?
>
>I haven't been able to find any info on the 2.5.  The manuals and schematics 
for the 5A and the 2.5B/C are some help, but the 2.5 is very different from the 
2.5B/C.  Any info would be greatly appreciated.
>
>Thanks,
>
>Ed


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Re: [time-nuts] Noisy Sulzer 2.5 - Suggestions?

[paul swed]

Ed,
Thats quite the challenge and yes the carbon resistors must be about 50
years old now. So questioning them is reasonable. I have a c so take my
next comment with caution.
The oscillator is a small circuit and then it runs to buffers and
multipliers and stuff.
Lots of parts of every type. Maybe it makes sense to isolate and measure
just the oscillator circuit to see how it behaves without all of the other
stuff. Also there were various regulators in that can. Lots of
possibilities for trouble. But also worth the effort to figure it out.
Great old oscillators.
Regards
Paul
WB8TSL


On Wed, Aug 17, 2016 at 4:25 PM, Ed Palmer  wrote:

> I picked up a Sulzer 2.5 (not 2.5A or 2.5B or 2.5C) oscillator and 5P
> power supply.  It's working, but the AlDev at low tau is poor. After a few
> days of operation the AlDev @ 1sec. is only 1e-10.  It's not the power
> supply.  I'm running under 'AC fail' conditions with a lab power supply
> standing in for the batteries.  This bypasses almost everything in the
> power supply.  Eventually, I plan to replace the batteries with lead-acid
> and replace the circuit board with an improved circuit.
>
> So, I'll be opening up the oscillator to see what's what.  My first 'usual
> suspect' will be the Ta capacitors, but I'm wondering about all those
> carbon composition resistors.  Should I be looking at a wholesale
> replacement with metal film?  Maybe just in the oscillator and AVC areas?
> Are there any other known trouble spots with these oscillators?
>
> I haven't been able to find any info on the 2.5.  The manuals and
> schematics for the 5A and the 2.5B/C are some help, but the 2.5 is very
> different from the 2.5B/C.  Any info would be greatly appreciated.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Ed
>
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> To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/m
> ailman/listinfo/time-nuts
> and follow the instructions there.
>
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Re: [time-nuts] Noisy Sulzer 2.5 - Suggestions?

[Bob Camp]

Hi

Let it run for a month before you worry much about measuring what it is doing ….
Some (but not all) of those old crystals took a while to settle in. 

Bob


> On Aug 17, 2016, at 4:25 PM, Ed Palmer  wrote:
> 
> I picked up a Sulzer 2.5 (not 2.5A or 2.5B or 2.5C) oscillator and 5P power 
> supply.  It's working, but the AlDev at low tau is poor. After a few days of 
> operation the AlDev @ 1sec. is only 1e-10.  It's not the power supply.  I'm 
> running under 'AC fail' conditions with a lab power supply standing in for 
> the batteries.  This bypasses almost everything in the power supply.  
> Eventually, I plan to replace the batteries with lead-acid and replace the 
> circuit board with an improved circuit.
> 
> So, I'll be opening up the oscillator to see what's what.  My first 'usual 
> suspect' will be the Ta capacitors, but I'm wondering about all those carbon 
> composition resistors.  Should I be looking at a wholesale replacement with 
> metal film?  Maybe just in the oscillator and AVC areas?  Are there any other 
> known trouble spots with these oscillators?
> 
> I haven't been able to find any info on the 2.5.  The manuals and schematics 
> for the 5A and the 2.5B/C are some help, but the 2.5 is very different from 
> the 2.5B/C.  Any info would be greatly appreciated.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Ed
> 
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