Post your Solid State pics here

Gainwire 3.1 , work in progress :)
 

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Honey Badger and Doug Self Preamp

Time to contribute back to community.

The power amp is a bit messy. The goal is to eventually free up room by installing an SMPS which will help me organize insides better.

The little box on top is a Bluetooth receiver (not my making). :)
 

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Hey guys/gals! So get this, one of my friends does what he calls dumpster diving on weekends, but he isn't actually jumping in a dumpster. Anyway, he asked me if a Sansui AU-517 is worth money and I told him yes and don't plug it in (in case of serious damage inside already). Well once I got it home and examined it thoroughly including breaking down the chassis to the bare bones. I could only come up with a few locations that were even suspect, much less an ACTUAL problem. So I decided hell, I'll turn it on and test it.

To my amazement the thing just worked. This was sitting outside next to a trash compactor that was full and waiting for the garbage truck before being put in and my friend found it before luckily. He doesn't have any electrical knowledge nor did he want an amplifier from 1978, but I knew damn well it was worth $100 just in parts alone. Now I am considered things to upgrade besides the suspect capacitors where you see corrosion at the base of the cap or bulging caps.

How long could these huge Nichicon CEW 12,000 uF / 63V last? Does the aging of capacitors still occur if the capacitors are rarely or never used? I can understand that the dielectric would break down with time alone, but I think it would go much longer if rarely used in comparison to a daily usage capacitor. The application should also play a role in this, depending on how big of a role the capacitor plays, comparing PSU circuits to audio ones should be much different, right? I did just get a Cornell Dubilier BF-50 Capacitor Analyzer (tube based), so I guess I could just pull them and check.

If interested you can see more pictures and articles on my site with one published review at Hallman Labs

Pretty soon I will have an ES9038Pro + Burson Audio vs. Orange Discrete Op-amps review. Hopefully before the new year!

Placing a question about the large capacitors only, means that you dont have your way around these amplifiers.....
Here is what you expect :

1) Chris aka Anatech is always right but in this case you might have an exception statistic point of view say that 60% of 417-517-and 717 toast the capacitors to almost half the capacitance depending on the duty.Though amplifier will play regardless if the bank is 50% empty Distortion will come when power demands go up .

2) expect the relay to be replaced symptom will be to loose on ch and when you crunk the volume to come back

3) Resistors R23 R25 150 R feeding VAs stage in both amplifier stages are open from 150 R often to 800 R but since they open both amplifier continue to play but out of specs

4) all capacitors in the vertical power supply board are more or less toasted and need to be replaced .In the same board is the famous glue of death meaning amount of glue is placed from the factory to some parts to keep them in the board for the soldering procedure but inside this glue moisture concentrates and often look at resistors that are oxidized from that and pins turn Green ...Replace all of them .

5)On the same board there is a bunch of 1N 4007 style diodes with a statistic that go short for no obvious reason

6) Expect minor issues in the preamplifier with resistors 82R or others also go open inspect that area also

7) expect most of your switches to look like in this picture and you need to find a way to re estate them like ....in the other picture Likewise expect the critical trimmers on the amplifier board to look alike

8) Avoid spraying them ...Too much spray might increase crosstalk and leakage especially in the rotary input selector where except audio signal there is above 30V present to light up he front leds ...Mixing up these to signals might cause plenty of complications ...

If you like this amp and like to keep it alive there is no way around those you will have to do them all
 

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