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jmorris

James Morris

After many hours, including re-capping the power supply (no dice, but worthwhile in any case), and tracing through most of the upper section, I finally found the issue with this Tektronix spectrum analyzer. A tantalum cap on the horizontal storage board failed and shorted the +15v bus. Replaced it and the SA seems to be working ok so far. #hamradio #amateurradio #electronics
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ai6yr@m.ai6yr.org

AI6YR Ben

Reply to @jmorris

@jmorris Oh, that's unusual... I didn't think those tantalum caps went out.

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jmorris

James Morris

Reply to @ai6yr@m.ai6yr.org
@ai6yr it seems to be a fairly common failure mode for these units, along with bad electrolytics and changes in some key resistors. The high voltage readings were out of whack which led to suspecting the PSU, but none of those voltages will be correct without all of the op amps etc. which depend on +/- 15v. Interestingly, all except one of the the electrolytics I removed and measured were well within spec for ESR (the outlier was ‘ok’ but not bad by any means). Says a lot about the quality of these 30 year old units (also that it still worked after I pulled it apart!)
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