Monday, March 28, 2016

Repairing the Globetrotters Power Board - stage 1

The Globetrotters power board is in bad shape. Scorch marks, burned components, missing pieces, etc.

However, the good news is that I can easily buy a replacement, so..... that makes it a perfect candidate for my first board reconstruction!

If you recall from the last entry, this is how the unit started.




Separating the board meant unsoldering each one of the wires:


But at last, I had it separated!


Unfortunately, my soldering skills are still not quite as good as they should be. But in my defense, removing the big Bridge Rectifiers (essentially big square boxes soldered to the board) is hard. All 4 contacts have to be heated simultaneously while the board is held in the second hand and the rectifier is extracted with the 3rd hand.

Anyway, as you can see, I managed to remove the little metal slots and pads where the solder wen through the board:






I still have the big connectors to remove and I need to check the resistors and diodes to see how they look, but I can't do that while they are under a layer of dirt and grime......so, into the bath they went!


After 1/2 hour in concentrated soap and with a light scrubbing from a delicate paint brush, the board looks much better:




Next step, remove the rest of the components I plan to replace (multi-pin connector and the fuse holders) then brush with a tougher brush (toothbrush)

No comments:

Post a Comment