Photo-Genic

Bit of a special one today. A ‘Knight Rider’/Gala, radio watch. 🙂

After a few dry joints, a clean up and a couple of new batteries…

…it’s all up and running again.

With all of the electrical equipment all over the place it’s actually doing quite well. Had to record from a pair of headphones into the mic, but you get the idea. 🙂

Today’s ‘On the bench today’ is a finishing up of the repairs to this Selena Vega 215.

The main board has been re-capped, and is now fully working, all that needs to be done now is the power supply and amplifier board, to be re-capped as well.

Here is a picture of the old capacitors that need to be changed.

The old capacitors have long since dried up and will be replaced with a more modern type pictured above.

Also there is the problem of the non-standard mains socket, which could not be re-sold in its current state. It will need to be replaced with a UK standard socket.

Careful grafting of the new socket in place.

Nice and neat.

Pat testing done, All okey.

All sorted and ready for it’s new owner. 🙂

Just thought I’d share some pictures of the promotional / odd-bod bits and pieces collected over the years working for Sony/Panasonic/Technics etc. The Sony Discman thermometer is particularly rare, I’ve never seen another online, it was given to me by the tech team at Sony around 1988.

Lots of pens 🙂

Mugs.

One of the Panasonic mugs is one of those thermal jobbies, which reveals the branding when hot.

And a few umbrella’s too.

I just don’t think companies out there are interested in promotional items as much as they used to be. Sad really, as these are really nice things to show off your brand.

If I find any more odd stuff, I’ll pop it here.

Here’s part two of the ultrasonic repair. Replacement ultrasonic resonator fitted.

Still didn’t work, strange, measured the new unit, and it’s 3.8nF, measured the old unit and its 5.2nF even though it’s marked 3.7nF.

The circuit is looking for approximately 3.7nF, so the new unit is correct. Then I noticed there’s an extra capacitor fitted to the circuit that the larger ultrasonic cleaner doesn’t have.

I’m guessing this is because there are two ultrasonic resonators in parallel, so the capacitance would have to be doubled, so I thought what the hell let’s match the other cleaner and see what happens, took the capacitor out and the thing works fine.

I guess I’ll have to experiment to find the perfect resonant circuit, but for the meantime things are okay. I’m assuming the wound coil is not the correct mH to make the circuit run properly.

Just a side note, if you want to test an ultrasonic cleaner, the best way to visually see how it’s performing is to place a piece of aluminium foil in it, and switch it on, if all is working well, the aluminium foil will be dissolved in the places where the ultrasonic cavitations are the strongest.

Okey, a bit special this one, it’s just over fifty years old, so needs a little love and no new components if at all possible. The idea is to preserve this radio as it has it’s box and instructions in mint condition.

Got the manual ready for the setup.

Careful strip down and hooked up to the test equipment.

All good to go.

Playing some classical music.

Well, the ‘Franken-Roberts’ lives, found some NOS displays that I bought years ago, because they were cheap 😀 Anyway, fitted one (after finally finding a manufacturers pdf of both displays) and bingo, it’s alive.

Repaired the psu and I think I’ll relegate it to the workshop as a background noise machine. Another job, jobbed.

Sorting out a box of valves, to try and find something, To my surprise, underneath the box I found a Sony Diskman. Even though I worked for Sony, I never actually owned one.

Honestly don’t remember ever seeing it before. Must’ve been in with the valves, and got overlooked. It had 20-year-old alkaline batteries in it, which had leaked all over the place.

Miraculously the leakage had missed the circuitboard.

Lots of cleaning up with vinegar, the contacts were back to almost perfect.

Lots of polish, plastic polish and a service and all is well again.

I’m quite pleased I now own a minty one by accident. 🙂

After it’s close call with a whole lot of leaky capacitors, the ICF-SW7600 is alive and good for another 30 odd years, hopefully more. 🙂

And here are the offending little monsters.

On the bench today, the little red radio.

And now the mammoth task of replacing two capacitors. 🙂

Okey, pickled.

And finally after setting up…

Now to find some other colours. 🙂

This one’s a bit poorly, and is suffering from the usual dodgy capacitor problem. However, it’s in a lovely condition so be ashamed to let it die.

The little round silver things are the capacitors, and are directly soldered onto the circuit board, they are filled with fish oil, yes you heard it right, fish oil, and unfortunately this leaks all over the board when these go faulty.

So, its a case of removing each one individually with two soldering irons, and then replacing them with quality replacements. This is not a job for the fainthearted, as if you try to twist these capacitors off on this type of board, you’ll damage it because the traces just lift off straightaway. Be warned, these circuit boards are very delicate.

Pop back in a few days to see how it goes…