On Sun, May 17, 2015 at 09:30:59AM -0400, Michael Thompson wrote:
We received lots of comments on reforming the capacitors in the power
supply and strong recommendations from experts to just replace them. Since
new caps are a different physical size, and would cost about $250 we
decided to continue with reforming the originals. We measured the voltage
ripple on the backplanes near the power connectors.
For intermittent use I have found most are still useable. I replaced two main
filter capacitors in my straight 8, none in MARCH's straight 8.
My 8/I which is similar age as a 12 has the original capacitors also.
I took some data on the capacitor reforming and final parameters.
http://www.pdp8online.com/shows/vcfe15/slides/PDP-8_Restoration.html
- -30.0V = -31.2V, 800 mV PTP ripple
Is there a regulator on this that removes the ripple when driving
the memory? That seems really high. The straight 8 limit is 50 mV after
the regulator. Does the 12 manual give ripple limits?
If it has the Faston 1/4 connectors I have found they can get resistive
which can cause voltage drop or increase in ripple.
The 800mV of ripple on the -30 is a sign that the caps
in the power supply
were not working well, and is probably too noisy for the core to work. We
tried to measure the capacitance of the power supply capacitors using an
ancient, but very nice, GenRad capacitor meter, but unfortunately the caps
were too big to measure.
The ripple is frequently ESR and not capacitance.
After running the system for about four hours the
ripple on the -30V was
down to 180mV, so the capacitors are getting better. More run time will
hopefully reduce the ripple to an acceptable level. If not, we will have to
replace them.
Interesting. I didn't think ripple would improve.