After reading some of the responses in the "Beginner's guide" thread, I thought I would ask, how do you prefer to replace capacitors in a TV, radio, whatever? I have typically always desoldered the old capacitor from the terminal strip/tube socket, and replaced it with a new one, installed like the original. But from the responses, it seems a lot of people prefer to clip the old leads and solder to those. I'm not asking for an argument on which method is best, we all have our preference, but I would like to know if there's anyone else that bothers to actually desolder the entire component and replace it... :)

My reasonings on desoldering and replacing are that it looks neater, and ensures that I'm not relying on some 50 year old connection. The disadvantages, are of course, that desoldering could potentially damage delicate parts or break terminal strips. That said, I do clip and solder to old leads where the space is too tight to get in there and desolder, or the old lead connects to a delicate looking coil and I don't want to damage it. But for terminal strip and tube socket connections I prefer to desolder and replace.

I was going to make this a poll, but I don't seem to see the option anywhere in the "post new thread" page. I even searched the page for "poll"...

So, thoughts?

-Ian

I desolder and make sure the holes are clean, then solder in the replacement cap.

Only in the most inaccessable situations would I consider clipping and soldering to leads, even though it might be faster and easier to do so. Why put two solder joins in where you could have only one, especially when one of them is already old? I don't see any advantage or to or reason for that, except laziness.

Of course, this presupposes that one has the equipment (I use a professional resoldering station) and knowledge/practice to be able to do a decent desoldering and resoldering, but if not, then one shouldn't be playing around "under the hood", anyway. There is a slight risk of lifting/damaging traces, but this rarely occurs, and even if/when it does, repairs can be done. I'd rather take that very slight risk over the bigger risks of relying on old solder joints.

Others may do differently.

I always desolder and remove the old cap completely, unless like Arkay said if it's really, really difficult I will snip and solder onto the old leads, (i.e. if the risk of breaking something is too great to completely remove the old cap).

On rare occasions I'll melt out the old caps guts and install the new one inside the paper shell, using paper washers on the ends and hot glue to simulate the wax filling.

Electrolytics get stuffed into the old can whenever possible, if I can't get them all inside the can I'll do what I can and stick whatever I can't underneath.

I will start from scratch whenever practical. There are instances when removing the entire old lead can do more harm than good. Tight spaces, brittle terminal strips or sockets, lugs that have about 5 or 6 components tied to them...all can complicate matters.

I only restuff the "extra special" sets-radios, I've never done it on a TV.

There are several things that I consider: First is the type of restoration or repair I'm doing; if it's a collectible TV with historic value, I will go to extremes to get a new cap with sufficiently long leads and will remove the old leads and make it like the factory did. If it's a quick repair on something that doesn't have much historic value (predictas, etc, where it's a HUGE job to do it right,) I'll clip the leads. If there's an IF transformer, or other thing that's going to be easy to damage by heat, I may make a judgement call and clip the lead going to that part, and make a loop with the remaining old lead, and solder the new cap to the loop.

In general, if I'm recapping a 630 or something, I will most always do it right and remove the old leads. Just words of wisdom: Chances are that some day, another collector will have their hands on the TV that you're recapping. Think about what people would say when they look at your work :) The Late Roy Burnett, for example, was known for his beautiful work on restoring Scott and McMurdo Silver radios. Every lead from every component was laid perfectly. Every corner square and straight, every wire stripped to the exact same length, every resistor with exactly 1.5 turns of it's leads through the lug, every terminal strip plumb and true.

Charles

I desolder and make sure the holes are clean, then solder in the replacement cap.

Only in the most inaccessable situations would I consider clipping and soldering to leads, even though it might be faster and easier to do so. Why put two solder joins in where you could have only one, especially when one of them is already old? I don't see any advantage or to or reason for that, except laziness.

Of course, this presupposes that one has the equipment (I use a professional resoldering station) and knowledge/practice to be able to do a decent desoldering and resoldering, but if not, then one shouldn't be playing around "under the hood", anyway. There is a slight risk of lifting/damaging traces, but this rarely occurs, and even if/when it does, repairs can be done. I'd rather take that very slight risk over the bigger risks of relying on old solder joints.

Others may do differently.


If you are talking about printed circuit boards we always completely remove the old components from the board, remove excess solder from the pad and resolder in the new component...on point to point wiring we usually use the end of the old capacitor lead to make the connection after thoroughly cleaning the old end and making a firm mechanical connection...if accessible we'll go directly to the socket or terminal strip if there is not too many items soldered to it.

We just worked on a Seeburg jukebox where someone just laid the new cap lead next to the old one and soldered, there was no mechanical connection at all...we re-did all these connections making sure there was a firm connection.

I usually try to completely remove the old components and leads, but there are some execeptions. I've found particularly with some old tube sockets in hard to get to areas with both the soldering iron and the pliers at the same time, that I've sometimes damaged them trying to unwind that bit of old wire from the terminal, so what I've started doing is just clipping the old lead right up at the edge of the terminal it's hooked to, leaving that bit of old wire twisted around it, but also tying the new lead through the hole in the terminal and soldering it directly as well. It's not as neat, but at least I don't break any tube sockets that way. I'll nearly always pull old leads out of circuit boards (but I hate working on circuit boards, I almost always wind up lifting traces, one of the reasons I have yet to restore my ctc-10) Occasionally I'll come up against a really delicate looking horiz lin coil or something similar, or the leads just won't reach, and I will tie the new component to the old leads.

As far as stuffing caps, I've never done it, I figure as long as the chassis looks original on top, and my work is neat underneath, I don't care too much if it looks 100% original underneath as well, as long as it works. I suppose if I ever get a really rare set I might do it.

I also completely remove the old parts unless it is likely to cause damage, but I am pretty good with being careful around old components. I do not restuff electrolytic cans or paper cap sleeves.

I guess I figure if you're worried about "50-year-old" solder joints, then you'd better suck and re-solder ALL the joints under the set, not just the capacitor leads. 50-year-old solder either works or it doesn't. And if you're worried about 50-year-old solder, then you should worry about other 50-year-old metal as well, so you should remove and replace all the components, not just the capacitors. And if you're worried about 50-year-old metal, then you'd better re-bend a new chassis. And what about the 50-year-old wood? Better get the tablesaw out and make a new cabinet.

It's a question of restoring vs. "remanufacturing" to me.

I restored cars for ten years in the 1980s. People are really anal about originality in cars. If you put the wrong battery-terminal on one, you can lower its value a thousand dollars. Even if the replacement terminal works better. So I approach radios the same way. Do the least destruction as possible. Soon as you put your own style of lead dress or wrap on a terminal strip, you undo the original technician's intent and style. You change its history. Leaving the assembly work as untouched as possible, doing the least damage to the original intent and creation, is what matters the most to me. Clipping the capacitor lead at the cap body, leaving the original joint as it was originally placed, and installing the repair part as unobtrusively as possible, supports this philosophy the best.

That being said, we are talking about under-chassis solder joints. The most important thing is that the things conduct electricity, before looking "tidy" or "neat". I always Ohm my joints out with a VOM. And like I said on the other thread, it always works, and looks fine to me. Nothing "lazy" ever crosses my mind. If I were lazy, I'd just go buy a new Sony at Best Buy, and chuck all the old solder joints into the nearest dumpster.

I will say that I've only worked on 5 TV sets. What I said applies to radios I've done.

My first all-out TV resto, I went to the effort of orienting all the new capacitors exactly orthogonal (either parallel or perpendicular to the chassis edges). It gave it a "neat" look. This mod doesn't say "vintage Magnavox" though, it says "Kirk Was Here". Some people would have a problem with that.

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