630TS capacitor reforming ramble

[Penthode]

I have repaired many old radio and television sets since the late sixties. I have generally found no problem reforming and repurposing old electrolytics. Paper capacitors leak and carbon resistors drift and need to be replaced but the electrolytics, especially the excellent Sprague and Mallory electrolytics from the 40's and 50's seem fine.

Most importantly, you can easily determine if the electrolytic will fail after reforming: simply bench test the set for a few hours and check if they get warm. I find that in 99% of successful reformings I have no problem.

I had my 16" 1949 RCA TV on this weekend for about six hours. It has probably run a couple of hundred hours and one section of a multisection capacitor opened. I replaced it with a NOS unit dated 1965 and the set runs excellently. Apart from that, all the rest of the electrolytics are original. And my 1948 RCA (my first set I acquired in 1969) has all original electrolytics and I have probably put a good thousand hours on that set over the years.