[TMC] PS-4 ka-pow!

[Nick England]

Well my RFD's blower motor capacitor C-301, which is actually located
on the PS-4 chassis, gave up the ghost with a very load bang
yesterday.
Pretty good show actually - The alum. shell rocketed across the room
trailing oil and a small bundle of flaming debris. The capacitor guts
created a stretched out cylinder about 2' long. Moral of this story -
when resurrecting an old power supply, check the oil cap case
temperatures to see if there is a problem. (Note - this is NOT an
electrolytic cap and reforming has nothing to do with it)

Luckily the alum. shell ricocheted off the SBE-9 chassis located above
the PS-4 and there was no damage and just some oil to clean up (plus
some smell from the small fire across the room...). 2nd Moral - don't
leave gear like this unattended, even if all you are doing is going
out to the garage to haul in some cat-excluding side panels and a door
for the SBT-1K rack

So - This is a 4uF, 600wv oil-filled cylindrical capacitor that is
chassis-mounted via a 1" bottom nut - looks kind of like your typical
vintage power-supply oil-filled filter cap except it has 2 insulated
terminals. Any suggestions about where to find a replacement? The
typical motor-run caps available nowaday are quite different form
factor and I can make one work, but it would be nice to stick an
original type back in place. FWIW, it is called C-301 on the PS-4,
C-706 on the PS-4A

cheers,
Nick K4NYW
www.navy-radio.com