[ARC5] Aging Electrolytics

[Glen Zook via ARC5]

Whenever I receive a unit for alignment, repair, restoration, etc., I definitely replace the paper capacitors and electrolytic capacitors automatically.  The cost, to the client, is generally not that much and the potential savings, in the long run, is well worth the relatively small price at the beginning.
Frankly, when someone is paying to have their unit worked on, they do not want to have to pay more later.
With my own equipment, I don't want to have to go into the unit again for a long time and, as such, do replace the capacitors.  For something that is not going to be used.  That is, sits on a shelf just for "looks", then there is no real need to replace the components.  However, for something that is going to be used, I don't want to take chances that there are going to be problems in the future.  My experience has been that the capacitors do cause problems, down the road, when they are not replaced.
The truth be known, paper capacitors start going bad the day that they are manufactured.  Even sitting on a shelf, brand new, never being installed in equipment, the vast majority of those capacitors are going to be leaky after a decade, or two.  Such is not true of modern replacements.
A unit may appear to work well without replacing the capacitors.  However, in most cases, when the capacitors are replaced, there is a marked improvement in the performance.
Of course, it is the choice of the individual as to whether or not to replace paper capacitors and electrolytics.  But, it is taking a chance and the eventual situation, in the majority of cases, is a failure of these components and that failure often "takes out" a lot more things like transformers, i.f. coils, etc., which are usually quite expensive to obtain replacements if replacements can be actually found. Glen, K9STH

Website: http://k9sth.net
      From: Don Merz <n3rht at yahoo.com>
 To: Brian Carling <bcarling at cfl.rr.com>; Glen Zook <gzook at yahoo.com> 
Cc: "arc5 at mailman.qth.net" <arc5 at mailman.qth.net> 
 Sent: Saturday, January 31, 2015 11:23 AM
 Subject: Re: [ARC5] Aging Electrolytics
   
I agree. Randomly replacing all the caps in a unit is probably a strong indicator that you have too much time on your hands. A surprising amount of this gear can be on the air with little effort. And the truth is that most of these rigs have a WIDE tolerance for component value variations. Sure there are plenty of exceptions. But starting into a project with the idea that "they all need replaced" is not my idea of the way to go.73 de N3RHT