TV analyst/cap replacement philosophies

[John Folsom]

Chad use the salient word, "reliability". When I restore a 1940s B&W TV, or a 1950s color TV, I replace all the wax paper and electrolytic capacitors. I often test the wax paper caps as I remove them, and many of them show low leakage, and would work fine in many applications. But what I want most of all is to improve the reliability of the TV I am working on. If you leave the "good" wax paper and electrolytic caps in the set, it is cretin that you will be back in the set sooner than later hunting for the bad component.

Of course, replacing all these caps only improves your reliability so much. The set is still full of old parts, which have high failure rates due to the effects of time and use.