Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Marketplace => Topic started by: a1200 on December 22, 2015, 11:54:00 AM
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This guy was so helpful and went the extra mile when Royal Mail lost my order - he made sure I got another set so I can do the recap over Christmas. Link to eBay shop. (http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/zp_manchester/m.html)
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This guy was so helpful and went the extra mile when Royal Mail lost my order - he made sure I got another set so I can do the recap over Christmas. Link to eBay shop. (http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/zp_manchester/m.html)
I was going to open topic about it. I hear/read EVERYWHERE about changing cap in our Amiga or in general "classic" computers.
WHY?
IF caps are not "bursting" they are fine. They all are rated for few thousand hours of use. My experience. I had LCD monitor and it had problems with start up. I found out this monitor had issues with caps. I opened monitor and... few caps were getting out of shape. I replaced them and monitor works great last two years.
So, why to change caps "just in case"?
I have Color Classic on original caps, works like a dream. Should I replace caps? Same with my Amigas...
EDIT: Maybe it could be new topic...
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CAPs are usually rated for a 10 or so year life span. If they fail they might take out other components along the way. You don't want to be in the middle of something and smoke your Amiga.
With that being said. You need to check the age of the CAPs you are buying. You do not want to buy new-old stock. You want to buy good quality new CAPs from a reliable source.
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IF caps are not "bursting" they are fine.
OMG, really? Not even going to waste my time arguing with you, if you believe this so adamantly. Am sure others will be along to point out the error of your ways, however.
:laughing:
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CAPs are usually rated for a 10 or so year life span. If they fail they might take out other components along the way. You don't want to be in the middle of something and smoke your Amiga.
...but if not used they should not have "life span affected". IMO.
With that being said. You need to check the age of the CAPs you are buying. You do not want to buy new-old stock. You want to buy good quality new CAPs from a reliable source.
I think it just because they are OLD but not use it will not make them BAD.
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OMG, really? Not even going to waste my time arguing with you, if you believe this so adamantly. Am sure others will be along to point out the error of your ways, however.
:laughing:
I'm asking question. If you have answer, please provide.
From this what I know, capacitors age only when USED.
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I'm asking question. If you have answer, please provide.
I hate to be one of those grumpy old men who says "search the forums", but seriously. This question has been asked literally *hundreds* of times.
There's a really good thread (which I can't find off-hand) that shows the damage from leaking caps, with pictures. Thing is that a lot of them will leak from the bottom, so just a visual "surface" inspection may not reveal the corrosion occurring beneath them. And by the time you start getting the stability and audio glitches (a common sign that the caps are starting to go) common in our Amiga's, especially A600/1200/4000/CD32, irreversible damage may already have occurred.
Then there's the aside that *it is just so cheap to do*, why would anyone not do this common preventative maintenance? Even if you lack the tools or knowledge to do it yourself, AmigaKit and many others will do it for <$40 USD per board. Not doing common preventative maintenance is like arguing that you shouldn't change the oil in your car "since you can't see it it must not be bad", right? Gah. :p
I've never personally replaced the caps in an Amiga (yet - A2000's aren't as susceptible), but as a former Dell field technician I have replaced hundreds of motherboards that fell victim to "capacitor plague" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague). (see link) Just do it, and rest easier at night. ;)
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I'm asking question. If you have answer, please provide.
From this what I know, capacitors age only when USED.
No, all Amiga caps in all Amiga motherboards have well exceeded their life ratings.
Even if they are not leaking,they most likely have a reduced capacitance and/or may be completely bad.
These bad caps may not be filtering power coming in properly,or may allow noise or reduced volume on the audio etc.Dirty power can lead to random crashes and such.
Caps age mostly when not used.
It is why the military cycle their electronics often,to keep the caps viable, otherwise they go bad quicker.
Its a bit like letting a car battery set dead,if you leave it that way long enough it sulphates and/or shorts the plates and usually can't be revived.
old caps can leak and the leakage can eat traces just like the leaking batteries. I have repaired many boards in the last 15 years with neglected caps.
Its like having 4 bald tires on your car, and one blows out.. you don't put 1 new tire on knowing the other 3 are about to fail...well maybe you do,but most people dont lol
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No, all Amiga caps in all Amiga motherboards have well exceeded their life ratings.
Even if they are not leaking,they most likely have a reduced capacitance and/or may be completely bad.
These bad caps may not be filtering power coming in properly,or may allow noise or reduced volume on the audio etc.Dirty power can lead to random crashes and such.
I was thinking about capacitance decreasing in time. This is most convincing for me.
There is multiple types of caps... so called "solid" caps. Can I replace Amiga caps with any type (same specs)?
I would think that it should be fine? Why not to put there something what will last "for ever"? Since there are caps with no degradation?
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I hate to be one of those grumpy old men who says "search the forums", but seriously. This question has been asked literally *hundreds* of times.
OK. I know, it was asked for SURE by someone. Problem is that I like to have conversation with PEOPLE.
In next 10 years, we will have answers in google.com for every single question you (I) can ask EVER. Should you close "forum" section and tell everybody "go and search google library"?
BOOOOOOOORING.
IMO there is value in conversation, interaction etc. it is called learning process. It is like with school. ALL what we teach was already ANSWERED (I'm teacher). So, do you think I will tell my students: Stop asking questions, go to google and read answers? There are there for sure.
Take it or leave it.
Just do it, and rest easier at night.
Most likely I will do it, but now I want to know "what is best" for my few Amigas...
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I was thinking about capacitance decreasing in time. This is most convincing for me.
There is multiple types of caps... so called "solid" caps. Can I replace Amiga caps with any type (same specs)?
I would think that it should be fine? Why not to put there something what will last "for ever"? Since there are caps with no degradation?
Polymer caps(panasonic and other quality brands) are fine to use as replacements for electrolytics if the specs are matched, sometimes it is hard to find the value or size that matches however.
unfortunately there is no forever cap that i know of, but quality caps last between 10-30 years, look how long the originals made it and they were mediocre quality :)
tantalum,ceramics,foil,polyester,electrolytics all degrade eventually and some are not acceptable replacements for electrolytics.
i tend to stick with the panasonic long life ones.
Also keep in mind if you overheat it when soldering it it can reduce its life quite a bit.
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German only. Sorry.
http://www.amigawiki.de/doku.php?id=de:parts:ceramic_capacitor (http://www.amigawiki.de/doku.php?id=de:parts:ceramic_capacitor)
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I personally do not replace Amiga or any vintage computer capacitors if not required. My practice is to every once in a while (perhaps annually) measure each capacitor level with a multimeter. If I should see signs of age, I will replace, otherwise I leave them be if they show sufficient life left.
The reason for the above is simply due to minimizing risk of damaging any components such as the motherboard, solder pads, etc due to applying heat via a soldering iron, hot air, etc.
I am not saying the above is the absolute right way to go about it, but only what I personally consider to be the right thing to do, when trying to best take care of 30 year old equipment while assessing all possible risks of damage.
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How can you test them without removing them ?
And how can you remove them without soldering iron ???
That aside some caps can last much longer than some and never
leak so in that case I wouldn't poke around too much.Still , if cap
gets dried up and you replace it with full one something may blow up.
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I personally do not replace Amiga or any vintage computer capacitors if not required. My practice is to every once in a while (perhaps annually) measure each capacitor level with a multimeter. If I should see signs of age, I will replace, otherwise I leave them be if they show sufficient life left.
The reason for the above is simply due to minimizing risk of damaging any components such as the motherboard, solder pads, etc due to applying heat via a soldering iron, hot air, etc.
I am not saying the above is the absolute right way to go about it, but only what I personally consider to be the right thing to do, when trying to best take care of 30 year old equipment while assessing all possible risks of damage.
You cant test a cap with a multimeter, it will not tell you anything useful. The only way to properly test a cap is with a ESR meter and you would have to desolder them to do that.
soldering/desoldering caps is a basic,standard procedure in electronics, there should be no reason to cause damage if you are doing it correctly.
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Sorry for the typo. Not a multimeter, but an in-circuit ESR capacitor tester.
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OK. I know, it was asked for SURE by someone. Problem is that I like to have conversation with PEOPLE.
In next 10 years, we will have answers in google.com for every single question you (I) can ask EVER. Should you close "forum" section and tell everybody "go and search google library"?
BOOOOOOOORING.
IMO there is value in conversation, interaction etc. it is called learning process. It is like with school. ALL what we teach was already ANSWERED (I'm teacher). So, do you think I will tell my students: Stop asking questions, go to google and read answers? There are there for
Most likely I will do it, but now I want to know "what is best" for my few Amigas...
I agree with this completely!! It can be just as easy to answer a question with an answer rather than sending people off looking for old threads. It defeats the purpose of a forum. Plus in rediscussing something some new info might come out. It annoys me looking at a post and seeing the same old "we've already discussed that" answer. I am normally looking at the post because I might be interested in the subject. If you don't want to discuss something than ignore the thread. It's really simple.
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I agree with this completely!! It can be just as easy to answer a question with an answer rather than sending people off looking for old threads. It defeats the purpose of a forum. Plus in rediscussing something some new info might come out. It annoys me looking at a post and seeing the same old "we've already discussed that" answer. I am normally looking at the post because I might be interested in the subject. If you don't want to discuss something than ignore the thread. It's really simple.
LOL. You guys don't know how easy you've got it. In some of the other forums I frequent they'll straight-up curse you out if you ask the same question for the millionth time, that was already asked six times last week alone. But, cheers! :D :banana:
Edit - I've actually asked questions on some forums and had my thread locked by a moderator because it was asked too many other times recently. Everybody's a tough guy on the Internet! ;)
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I've actually asked questions on some forums and had my thread locked by a moderator because it was asked too many other times recently. Everybody's a tough guy on the Internet! ;)
(http://d2ws0xxnnorfdo.cloudfront.net/meme/326986)
:roflmao:
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As I said, if you don't care to discuss something ignore the thread. Is post count so important that someone has to comment on every single thread when you aren't willing to discuss what the thread is about? This site is going to die if everybody asking questions is told not to because they have already been asked. In real life if someone asks you a question you don't tell him to go ask Joe the answer because you already answered it for him. You answer the question again and move on.
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The recap went well. Ran A-Train overnight and it was still running in the morning - and the bank balance had gone from $300,000 to over $1.5M! A little copper square fell out of the floppy and it was making some odd sounds and sending the power light into spasm when ejecting disks so I have purchased a new internal disk drive - nothing to do with the recap just bad luck.
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A pic of the recapped board here (http://www.amiga600.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/IMAG2206.jpg).
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A pic of the recapped board here (http://www.amiga600.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/IMAG2206.jpg).
Looks like its all set to go ;)
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A pic of the recapped board here (http://www.amiga600.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/IMAG2206.jpg).
Nice work! Now while you got it open, just need to replace that RF output with an HDMI output. ;)
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Nice work! Now while you got it open, just need to replace that RF output with an HDMI output. ;)
That's motherboard butchery! I'd prefer to wait until wireless video transmitters are invented than butcher any of my Amiga motherboards. Each to their own though etc etc! ;)
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You can always save the RF output to be put back on the motherboard at a later time. I wouldn't really call that butchering the motherboard. But as you said, to each their own.
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As I said, if you don't care to discuss something ignore the thread. Is post count so important that someone has to comment on every single thread when you aren't willing to discuss what the thread is about? This site is going to die if everybody asking questions is told not to because they have already been asked. In real life if someone asks you a question you don't tell him to go ask Joe the answer because you already answered it for him. You answer the question again and move on.
This is especially true in case of Amiga. There is NO new hardware made so there is no new questions.
I had some break with Amiga, now I'm back at least for some time. I started looking at various Amiga forum and in general it is rather EMPTY. How we are going to attract anybody to Amiga when our forums will be dead/empty or you sent anybody who ask question to "archive" section of forum?
Technically I could ask this question about caps on any electronic related forum, but there is "something" about asking this question to Amiga users.
Also I DID some search before I asked this question and did not feel I got my answers.
When I re-cap my Amiga I will post picture, yes it is going to be ANOTHER BORING PICTURE of Amiga 1200 mobo with identical caps anybody can get of ebay.com. Wait! It is not going to be boring! IT IS MY AMIGA 1200 mobo!
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I wouldn't throw away that old floppy drive if it was working before
recap.That little copper square shouldn't make a difference (I don't
have mine and floppy works 100 %).
Voltages from psu (knock on wood :roflmao:) or more likely floppy cable
connection maybe ?
Or just in case that square copper thingy was jumper you can go here to check jumper settings http://dliapp.wizhut.com/blog/?
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I started looking at various Amiga forum and in general it is rather EMPTY.
Probably depends on your definition of EMPTY. I still find I spend too much time on my daily amiga.org fix.