Some basic DIY questions

[kptseng]

Hi All,

I'm no engineer so some terms I read on the web am not too sure and hope you can provide some help.

1. What is a shunt? There are some tips on replacing certain resistors in a CD Player with Shunt......

2. How to bridge a capacitor? Again, tips from modding a CD player.

3. How to revive an old electrolytic cap? I know there are some tips on reviving some old elec caps and make it sound new.

Many thanks in advance.

King

 

[bocka]

Hi king,

1. A shunt is a resistor

2. Use a second cap in parallel

3. Replace them. If a cap has reached its lifetime end it's normaly dryed up.

 

[kptseng]

3. Replace them. If a cap has reached its lifetime end it's normaly dryed up.

Hi,
There are some new old stock of elec caps I found, some made in 97, which is 8 year old. Do you think there should be considered?
Thanks.

 

[rehanabid]

8 years old capacitors, having faced weather conditions, my suggestion buy new ones.

 

[AndrewT]

Hi,
are electrolytics that bad?
I have used amps that are 20 to 30 years old and never run into a dead or dying electrolytics problem.
Please expound or does this afflict the very low voltage generally used in digital only?

 

[kptseng]

Hi Bocka,

Thanks for the reply, but what I read was to "replace the resistor with shunt". So if a shunt is a resistor then I don;t know what it mean. Maybe the author of was not clear...........

Hi Andrew,

If you are willing to try, replace the electrolytic caps in your amp with new caps with the same rating, and of course et some qulity ones, and you'll be amaze with the improvement.
What I found is that if you live with the amp everyday and you will not realized the little deterioration over time.

Cheers.

 

[bocka]

Thanks for the reply, but what I read was to "replace the resistor with shunt". So if a shunt is a resistor then I don;t know what it mean. Maybe the author of was not clear

Yes, the term "shunt" itself is commonly used as resistor so the statement "replace the resistor with shunt" makes no sense.

A 8 year old cap shouldn't dryed. I'd use it.

 

[mchapman]

A shunt is a generic term that refers to anything that diverts or bypasses the main flow.

For example, if you have open heart surgery, a shunt is used to bypass blood around your heart whilst the surgeon works.

In electronics, the shunt specifies the role, rather than the type of the component. Most often it is used to refer to resistors or voltage regulators (in the case of capacitors, the term bypass is used instead).

Any component that diverts a percentage of the main current/signal flow (usually to ground) is acting as a shunt.

The simplest example I can give is that of a two resistor voltage divider. The "series" resistor, R1, goes between the input and the output. The shunt resistor, R2, goes between output and ground. The output voltage Vout = Vin x R2/(R1 +R2). The quality of series resistors are said to influence the output sound quality more than the quality of shunt resistors.

 

[guytou]

replace the resistor with shunt . well ,in this case , a shunt means a wire . so in this example you can replace the resistor by a simple wire .