Recapping - Can I substitute screw terminal for radial through hole?

[jdurango]

Power One and Acopian fought tooth and nail for half a century competing for the power-brick market. (Didn't they merge, or both get swallowed-up?)

Yes, the original design was very sharp-pencil "right size", no fat on the bone. Gave good service powering factory gear for a couple of decades. Occasional replacement is part of the factory serviceman's job.

I can accept that these were just good enough for Sound Workshop when new, and could stand refreshing, and possibly upgrading, in fussy studio work. 2X-3X original cap value seems reasonable to me (it is what I often did; though I once treated a 80uFd Bogen to 470uFd...)

Power One Designs is now Belfuse. I believe Acopian is still Acopian, although they may have been bought out with no name change.

 

[Steve Hogan]

Hey Steve, thanks for the reply! So just to clarify, you'd generally recommend:

- Up values 1.5-3x on the main recitifer caps in the PSU. So in my case, around 50,000-75,000uF.
- Much larger values (as big as one can reasonably fit?) on the decoupling caps in the channel strips/master section.
- Use quality polarized caps for decoupling duties, such as Panasonic FM.
- Use quality bipolar caps for coupling, such as Nichicon ES "Muse" or Panasonic SU. (What about values on these caps? Keep them the same? Up voltage? Capacitance?)

Any strategic places you'd recommend film caps for coupling without increase noise too much? Or film caps in parallel with lytic? Thanks Steve! Very much appreciated!!

1. I would probably use 33,000uF to 47,000uF.  When you get the schematics from power one, make sure they send you the parts list which is on a separate page.
2. 470uF is plenty for channel strip decoupling.  220uF if 470uF won't fit.
3. Use the guidelines in the tutorial you quoted in the earlier post for non-polar coupling caps.  Value determined by load on series coupling cap.  Higher voltage ratings generally have lower dissipation factor and sound better.  So use the highest voltage (up to about 100V) that will physically fit in the space you have.

4.Film caps are great for high impedance (vacuum tube) coupling.  I don't use film caps in parallel with electrolytics any more.  It is a huge pain and listening results with my clients have determined that the electyrolytics sound best by themselves.

 

[jdurango]

1. I would probably use 33,000uF to 47,000uF.  When you get the schematics from power one, make sure they send you the parts list which is on a separate page.
2. 470uF is plenty for channel strip decoupling.  220uF if 470uF won't fit.
3. Use the guidelines in the tutorial you quoted in the earlier post for non-polar coupling caps.  Value determined by load on series coupling cap.  Higher voltage ratings generally have lower dissipation factor and sound better.  So use the highest voltage (up to about 100V) that will physically fit in the space you have.

4.Film caps are great for high impedance (vacuum tube) coupling.  I don't use film caps in parallel with electrolytics any more.  It is a huge pain and listening results with my clients have determined that the electyrolytics sound best by themselves.

1. Power One (BelFuse) wouldn't provide the schematics as they are "proprietary information". But fortunately the schematics (for the HDD15-5-A anyway) appear in the SW Series 34 manual, which is available online. Unfortunately component values are not marked, so I've had to agregate cap values manually.
2. 470uF Panasonic FM it is!
3, Roger that! Fortunately these SW modules don't have as many caps as other consoles I've had (only about 15 per strip.....vs about 50-60 on a Harrison I used to own!)
4. Thank God!

One more question. I plan on trying out LME, OPA and possibly some discrete DIP package op amps (Burson, Sparko, Orange, etc.) on stereo pairs of channels and possibly the master section. I know this is a large topic and probably no "one-size-fits-all-answer", but are there any specific considerations I should take in order to properly evaluate any of these op amps vs the stock 5534's? Change values of decoupling caps for certain chips? Or eliminate them entirely if DC offset falls below a certain threshold? Thanks again Steve! Very, very much appreciated!

BTW, If you're still working on these types of things I'd be very interested in sending them off to you after I've taken care of the relatively basic stuff. Let me know and I'll shoot you a PM. Thanks!

 

[PRR]

> I believe Acopian is still Acopian

Sarkis passed in 2007, but the faces of the place are now Acopian, Acopian, Acopian, and Karapetian-- apparently third generation of family business. article

I did not know the old man invented a power sander and the soldering gun at Weller before going into the solar powered radio business (that did not do well at the time, but he could do power supplies...)