[R-390] Paper Caps and the shield of invulnerability surrounding the R-390A

[Cecil]

Funny...off topic story that just happened in the last couple of days....

Our 10 year old three door refrigerator quit cooling in the frige section...freezer was working but freezing up.  Evaporator fan motor that circulates cold air from the freezer to the frige was not running.

Tore the thing apart and pulled the motor...it was a 120 vac motor but I could spin the shaft and tell it was really a DC motor...I could feel the magnets.

Opened it up and found a DC motor with lots of electronics...with FET drivers, a Hall effect speed sensor...etc.  spotted two swelled electrolytic caps...quick check...one was shorted.  Pulled them both and replaced them and the motor came to life.  Reinstalled it and frige is back in service...the wife was amazed and asked how I was able to figure that out...comes from fixing all those radios honey....

Just glad I didn't have to call a repair guy out....money I didn't need to spend right now...

Cecil

Sent from my iPad

> On Nov 30, 2014, at 4:25 PM, Tisha Hayes <tisha.hayes at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Cecil, you are right. There does appear we are all in a bit of denial about
> certain aspects of the R-390A receiver. I think that sometimes we
> half-believe that our radio was the last one that rolled off the
> manufacturing line at EAC in 1968 or was some special build that happened
> in the 1970's. We conveniently forget that even a 1968 vintage radio
> probably was built with parts that were made in 1964 and are 50 years old.
> 
> Hats off to the manufacturing of those radios in that day. It was the
> pinnacle of tube technology and was already rapidly being supplanted by
> transistors and early hybrid integrated circuits (in 1968).
> 
> Still, I have radios that were made in 2000 that have jinky
> capacitors.There is not a Motorola Spectra out there that does not have
> four or five of the capacitors of death in the audio circuitry. Resistors
> that have been following me around in that old coffee tin from 1992 do not
> always test like they should and I have ended up back at the same utility
> where I installed a comms system in 1988 that is now just wore out and only
> good enough for the junk collector.
> 
> That is a real kick in your mortality, when you are my age and replacing
> stuff I did when I first started out in engineering. Then I look ahead and
> realize that I might be replacing the work I am doing today in another
> fifteen years. Some of you guys are old enough to remember when the
> "nuvistor" was innovative.
> 
> We should never get too attached to the build quality or the components of
> what we have right now. The world continues to move on, we just like to
> preserve certain parts of it a bit longer. Capacitors are cheap when the
> possibility exists of you cooking a power supply choke or filters that are
> not so easy to find replacements for.
> 
> -- 
> Ms. Tisha Hayes. AA4HA
> 
> *""It is not because things are difficult that we dare not venture. It is
> because we dare not venture that they are difficult." -Seneca"*
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