Guilty by ageThat's it, you read it correct. While my package with urgently needed new transformer sitting in post office warehouse, collecting dust, I decided to finish up with outguard boards.
Since I bet all of you already tired as hell watching multimegabyte photos, let's do something different today:
5 hours worth timelapse, one shot every minute, 4K resolution. Actually I wanted livestream on youtube first, but they changed stuff around again, need use some dodgy 3rd party software (NONE of which worked on my Win2008, DOH!), so I gave up after waste of 1 hour, and used my
trusty repaired Nikon D3 to shot timelapse.
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Alright, what was going on there?
A5 boardReplaced original rusty GPIB connector with fresh one from dead 33120A PCB, I had around.
Quiz for readers : what are those funny traces with cutout do?
After connector replacement (had to saw it a bit, as it's mounted to PCB using rivets!). No, I don't have a drill, so used hand mill instead.
Then boring part, water+IPA bath for PCBA:
A6 boardNow while A5 rests drying out, I took a close look on A6 outguard PSU board.
Removing VFD supply boardie:
It's a
TDK-CD1867N DC-DC/DC-AC moduleNow since monday I will have my Digikey package with new caps, I removed old ones. They looked alright, so most of you guys would think -
hey, those caps probably okay, don't waste your time?Nah, better be safe than sorry... Get out!
Oh boy...
Mr.Leaky there..
Small ones did not do any damage (yet), but bigger ones...
Oh-ho-ho. Glad I removed them. And glad HP 3458A using only 2-layer PCBs, so I'll just clean it to shiny copper, add thermal-resistant mylar cover around pins , just in case.
Caps I bought are long-life 5000hrs @+105°C, so should work a treat.
I was wondering and measured old caps too, for series capacitance and resistance:
I have few more videos (usual ones, not timelapse) of cleaning. I can upload that too, if anyone wants here. It's boring tho.
So people, learn the lesson today, capacitors are only worse with age, not better like voltage references. 10 years passed? Replace them now!