Poly Mod Success Stories

[kc8adu]

Re: Poly Mod Success Stories

do you have an esr meter and the old caps?
would be interesting to see how far off spec they are.
going to do a p4c 800 for a neighbor.similar quirks.
going to check the old caps after i pull them.

[Logistics]

Re: Poly Mod Success Stories

No, and no.

[kc8adu]

Re: Poly Mod Success Stories

ecs k7vza.
neighbor got tired of bsod.
i did her p4c 800 with polys a while back.
just did this one too.
vcore is dead quiet on the scope.
these are fujitsu re 820@2.5v

[i4004]

Re: Poly Mod Success Stories

>going to check the old caps after i pull them.

how were the old caps on that one?

[PCBONEZ]

Re: Poly Mod Success Stories

Why? - You out of caps again?
Why don't you just buy new ones this time. - They really are better..

[i4004]

Re: Poly Mod Success Stories

for the very reason kc brought it up

"would be interesting to see how far off spec they are."

as for me buying: why? you're gonna send me ton of new "premium grade" caps because i'm helping you with understanding electronics!
<wink>

>Why don't you just buy new ones this time.

you make it seem like used caps can be bought somewhere...hehe...nice one.

[kc8adu]

Re: Poly Mod Success Stories

>going to check the old caps after i pull them.

how were the old caps on that one?

iirc the ones on the p4c had a 2003 date.
most were about .25 ohm esr.
in this app thats as good as open.
the ones on the ecs had fully hatched.

[kc8adu]

Re: Poly Mod Success Stories

for the very reason kc brought it up

"would be interesting to see how far off spec they are."

as for me buying: why? you're gonna send me ton of new "premium grade" caps because i'm helping you with understanding electronics!
<wink>

>Why don't you just buy new ones this time.

you make it seem like used caps can be bought somewhere...hehe...nice one.

how much you give me for a 5 gallon pickle bucket full.:-)

[i4004]

Re: Poly Mod Success Stories

you pay me a beer(or two) and i drive them off to nearby garbage dumpster.
<wink>

[PCBONEZ]

Re: Poly Mod Success Stories

for the very reason kc brought it up

"would be interesting to see how far off spec they are."

as for me buying: why? you're gonna send me ton of new "premium grade" caps because i'm helping you with understanding electronics!

I don't pull "premium grade" caps but I do have somehwere between 20 and 30 thousand in stock.

You would have to understand electronics to help anyone.
The ability to stay on the subject and some basic communication skills wouldn't hurt either.

you make it seem like used caps can be bought somewhere...hehe...nice one.

I see them on eBay from time to time.
(I send the seller a link to brand new ones that cost less.)
KC8 has some.
TC would too.
I'll sell you all you want for $10 each + shipping... Just because it's you.

.

[kc8adu]

Re: Poly Mod Success Stories

funny but its true that audiophools will pay good money for "black beauties" or "bumblebee"caps.
these were about as good as g luxon or tayeh when new.
i keep all i pull during vintage equipment restorations.
its funny to see the bidding wars over junk parts.
i call them black leakies.some will explode due to trapped moisture if run a high enough voltage.

[370forlife]

Re: Poly Mod Success Stories

Audiophools. lol. Never heard that one before.

Thats why I only buy hafler.

[i4004]

Re: Poly Mod Success Stories

>I'll sell you all you want for $10 each + shipping...

so cheap!!??
marvellous!

no, keep your souvenirs...i don't collect garbage....


20k+ pieces is a lot: what's their "shelf life" before they lose oxide layer?

[ss627]

Re: Poly Mod Success Stories

Where do you guys find inexpensive polymers? With the prices of pc hardware these days, it hardly seems worth the price of caps to fix older stuff. I was going to do some preventive recapping on a gigabyte board but after factoring in the necessary caps + shipping, buying a new higher end board that already comes with full polymers would end up costing the same or even less.

[Wizard]

Re: Poly Mod Success Stories

Where do you guys find inexpensive polymers? With the prices of pc hardware these days, it hardly seems worth the price of caps to fix older stuff. I was going to do some preventive recapping on a gigabyte board but after factoring in the necessary caps + shipping, buying a new higher end board that already comes with full polymers would end up costing the same or even less.

Not true in some cases especially with production machines that is very dependent on specific set up that can't have it other ways. Capacitor replacements or exact board replacement is required.

Cheers, Wizard

[i4004]

Re: Poly Mod Success Stories

>it hardly seems worth the price of caps to fix older stuff.

most of the time that's true(esp. for most home users), but as wizard says sometimes (usually organizations, factories etc.) need to stay on their old gear, because (for example) they don't have their "mission critical" programs on new platforms(whoch tend to support only new os) etc.

even home users may have the need for old gear(ergo fixing what they have): say i need serial port(rs232) to connect to particular piece of hardware(say to fill the satellite receiver with better firmware etc.)....on new machines this port is on its way out, while on older machines u usually have 2 of them...
(but again, not many people will have the need to have serial port at all...)

[kc8adu]

Re: Poly Mod Success Stories

Where do you guys find inexpensive polymers? With the prices of pc hardware these days, it hardly seems worth the price of caps to fix older stuff. I was going to do some preventive recapping on a gigabyte board but after factoring in the necessary caps + shipping, buying a new higher end board that already comes with full polymers would end up costing the same or even less.

just have to search a bit.
google is your friend.
and another reason folks opt to get boards fixed is that they have a complex os/software set up that will not survive a transplant to a new board.and any old stock identical replacement is going to have the same failure due to the same junk parts.
only now these parts have aged a few years and will fail sooner if not right away.
add the problems with the economy and folks unwilling to go deeper in debt nor tolerate vista.
i have no shortage of work now and i doubt tc does either.
the usual industrial stuff but also boards i thought would now be rotting in landfills.old socket 370 and 462 stuff.even a few slot 1.
and then classics that folks will keep till they turn to dust like abit bp6/vp6.

[PCBONEZ]

Re: Poly Mod Success Stories

Where do you guys find inexpensive polymers?

Lately Mouser has the best prices.
Sometimes you get lucky on ebay.
Know someone that buys in bulk.

With the prices of pc hardware these days, it hardly seems worth the price of caps to fix older stuff.

If it only comes up once in a while and you are dealing with a standard board it probably isn't.
If you do it often then buying caps in bulk drives the cost down dramatically.
The lifetime after the upgrade should be longer than the life before the upgrade.
If you keep a stock of caps then getting the system back up can be a matter of hours rather than days or weeks.
[If you are an IT manager overseeing 100's or 1000's of computers that can be a very big deal.]
Or, if there is some underlying reason [some already mentioned] you need to stay with the same board.
> Reasons for same board might be:
- Don't want to deal with new drivers and new software-driver issues.
- Proprietary [to chassis] board and you want to keep the same chassis.
(Dell SX/GX come to mind but there are others especially when it comes to specialized servers.)
- Like KC8 touched on, changing out an industrial board might mean designing new add-in boards and supporting software from scratch. [Expensive and not fast.] Proprietary ISA boards are still common in industrial equipment and except for a rare few socket 478 boards you are stuck with using older boards for that.
- And of course some folks just like to tinker and learn.
.

[El-kamote]

Re: Poly Mod Success Stories

I practically share the same sentiment with ss627, when it's worth the money to replace the caps with polymers. I have a socket 939 Athlon64 X2 PC & I want to extend its life for some more years (which is still BTW a very capable machine). Surprised that the Foxconn board has zero busted caps even though it's riddled with OST & Teapo and the PC sees heavy use. And after some window shopping on the net I found out that polymers are priced exorbitantly compared to lytics. A full poly treatment would go a little over $80 by my estimate, a bit too much I guess.

Should I stick to lytics like Pana FM's for a recap and forget polys? Or should I only replace the caps in critical areas like VRM, chipset and near the RAM slots with polys? FM's are available abundantly at local branches of Farnell & RS.

Sigh, I wish I can use my soldering iron again. Too bad my work isn't even related to electronics :P

[Logistics]

Re: Poly Mod Success Stories

funny but its true that audiophools will pay good money for "black beauties" or "bumblebee"caps.

I thought in the case of black beauties, they were used in vintage instrument amplifiers/professional equipment, which gave them a distinct sound, not better sound as in cleaner sound.