Variac or not?

[jeyurkon]

Originally Posted by Chimes

I guess I don't see your concern. You say you have already recapped the set, so the next step would be to bring it slowly on the variac and watch for anything unusual. If it comes up and no smoke or fireworks, then time to trouble shoot any problems there may be.

I have never bothered to reform any new electrolytic capacitors and never had a problem and I have replaced hundreds. I hear the audio folks talk about that as they seem to think capacitors need to be "broken in", but with modern electrolytics that is simply not necessary.

I'm not perfect. I could have put one in reversed. The schematics don't show the correct polarity for all of the electrolytics which adds to the confusion. If I bring it up slowly I might catch such a mistake before serious damage occurs.

Or, I could have a solder splash that I missed.

The errors in the schematic don't surprise me. While repairing my Sony STR-V55 receiver I discovered four electrolytics that were not only shown backwards on the schematic, they were installed that way at the factory. Fortunately these only see 10mv since they bypass the emitter resistors.

John