- 2024
- Sep
- 15
An Eico 145 Signal Tracer - Part 5
Before you can put new parts in, you have to take the old parts out. So I did. I decided to just pull everything, clean up the connections, and replace everything all at once. Would I suggest doing it this way? No, not unless you’ve got a decent amount of experience building this kind of device, you have a decent amount of experience in general, or you’ve done this before. It’s better to replace each part individually - but since this chassis was kind of sloppy I decided to do it all at once.
To be honest, this wasn’t put together the best. Some of the components were installed properly, leads through the connection holes and wrapped to make a mechanical connection first. Others were just tacked on and pulled right off with the application of a little heat. Others were simply run willy-nilly with electrical tape and whatever was available. I have to assume that it had been repaired a number of times in it’s past. Hopefully, now that the chassis is clean it will look a little better going back together.
There were a few things left in. Transformers were left connected in some spots, and the jumpers that run around some of the sockets were left in place. All other things were removed.
There are surprisingly few parts in this thing.
I’m planning on measuring some of them later to see how far they’ve drifted, but I did decide to check the electrolytic to see if it was bad or good.
Yeah, they’re ok. Well within the -20/+100% tolerance, but the ESR is creeping up. They’d probably be fine for a while longer but there’s no need to keep them in there.
Something of note here: If you look at the removed parts, right beside the dual-section electrolytic is a little white tube. This is C1, which is supposed to go across the input terminals. Parts list says it’s a mica capacitor, and the drawings seem to show a mini postage stamp. That’s a ceramic tube capacitor - was that original, or did it get replaced at some point in it’s life? It’s old enough that it could be original, but who knows.
Next thing to do it start rebuilding. I may wait a while before I get to that, depends - if this is a rainy fall, a suitably wet Saturday may see this thing put back together. I may also just build each stage on it’s own once I get some suitable wire, and we’ll start with the power supply.
Until then - stay tuned!
Next part of this series: https://wereboar.com … cer-component-notes/
Previous part of this series: https://wereboar.com … ignal-tracer-part-4/