Vintage Synth Repair

On Thursday 08 May 2008 17:20, Philip wrote:
> As I think I've said before the bulk of my electronics
> experience is in fixing logic circuits, PSU's and
> monitors in archaic arcade video games,like Space
> Invaders and so on from the same sorts of periods as
> synths..and I have to say where there's a tant there's
> trouble, maybe 50% of the time.

Do you figure that they're from a specific time period,  the ones that are 
going bad?

> --- Malte Rogacki <gacki@...> wrote:
> > At 16:40 Uhr -0400 08.05.2008, Roy J. Tellason
> > wrote:
> > > > The german wikipedia states that older tantalum
> > > > caps are sensitive to low-ohm switching and could easily fail under
> > > > such circumstances. Don't know if this could be a reason.
> > >
> > > I don't know, though I do see many references to
> > > them being a problem in older equipment, Tektronix scopes being one of
> > > them. Most of the time it's their sensitivity to overvoltage that's
> > > described as being the problem.
> >
> > Well, the power supply decoupling caps in the various ARP synths are rated
> > 35V and put across +15V and -15V to ground; and I've seen them fail
> > regularly (the current Omni being an example); I've also had this problem
> > with synths from other manufacturers and with effects boxes.

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