The XT Dilema

Dang it! That is not funny time for XT to misbehave multiple times! :) Well, If yours is ORIGINAL bright green monochrome monitor, keep that power cable attached to the power supply "out" side. It's switched by that red switch. Look carefully if you can see orange glow through top grille in your monitor. If you try to power that monitor without signal plug attached to XT, I do not know if it will blow up or drill a new burnin in one spot. Have the monitor inspected and repaired by your friend who KNOWS electronics stuff and doing it for a living. Just in case. I caught and already informed local radio shack about the preishable capacitors after failing few from 2 bulk packages of capacitors with my new trusty ESR meter. Few years ago, I did that without proper tool to check those RS new caps for rebuilding PSU, that went bad in short order within a year. PSU is switching type BTW. :( And they told me that is first time they heard of it. HUH! Capacitors are like food. Use them or lose 'em. I know now for a fact: RS resells those bulk parts with castoffs mixed in with rare quality caps that has epoxyied bottoms instead of black rubber. (!) Compare that bulk packages to singles, some looked dreadful and badly oxidized, looked like they're from 10 or 20 years ago compared to shiny NEW caps. Now, I wonder where I can trust to get REAL fresh and speced 105C instead of cheaper 85C ones that I only see often when I go shopping at bulk components store in Toronto, Ontario, Canada? And cheap to boot as well? I have a old notebook, yes it's a compaq SLT 286 needing a right type. it's bit nonstandard shape: long skinny cap rated 1500uF at working 20V, it JUST a hair under 1/2" dia but length is limited by the 1500uF but the diameter is vital. Only one or two mm to play with. Whew! Oh, it's radial and has 3 legs: one for keeping the other end from wagging around, welded to the casing, other 2 is just your typical radial pattern. Right now I hung a regular cap w/ insulated 18GA wires just to cut losses outside the casing in the space between PSU and the floppy, just functional but plain ugly custom engineering. :) Oh, that one end of that bad cap is epoxied with that shiny red stuff. Nice, but that failure was internal wire break and allows a pin to rotate that I missed because that was WAY before I got the ESR meter. (!!) Oh, anyone heard of a portable/notebook maker called NBCC (Nippon Business Computer Corp.) ? I have 2 models of that maker one is 286 portable and one 386sx16 notebook, BOTH are needing in repair and like to have info about these reputation and its' reliablity.. If you have knowledge of them, just chat with me on private email. Models: (sorry no FCC # just models) 286LT and other one is 386SX I Think. Troll