Guilty use of old equipment

[paulsherwin]

Funny you should say that, I use a 1987 Malaysian Concert Boy 225 as my 'eating dinner in the garden on a nice day' radio. I knocked it off the table and snapped off the aerial, replacing it with half of a Poundland telescopic FM aerial which is too big but works well enough. I must give it a good clean and fix the aerial properly sometime.

[The Philpott]

Mine's a Heayberd 2v,6v,12v Battery Charger, just changed the mains cord for heat resistant 3 core of the smallest diameter that i could find locally (about 7mm) and away it went. Even the cheap looking unbranded Ammeter worked to within 8%. If one had small children around it would need to be up out of harms way, since the perforated case looks rather inviting to knitting needles and suchlike, but other than that- fine.

[PSValves]

Out current kitchen radio is a late Hacker Hunter. I justify this on the grounds that it sounds better than any modern radio I've heard.

[Wellington]

Originally Posted by cmjones01

It feeds a pair of Wharfedale Diamond speakers, again passed on from someone for free.

Free! I paid £8 for mine ten years ago!

Seriously, I'm fascinated (and heartened) that many contributors to this thread merely "make do", and tend to put off any mending indefinitely!

Indeed, it's quite remarkable, sometimes, how much one is willing to tolerate before action is taken - 'untouchable' volume controls being a case in point…

[G6Tanuki]

My current "Kitchen Radio" is a WWII-vintage Pye "PCR" that's been [seemingly professionally] fitted with an internal mains PSU and a magic-eye tuning indicator.

It's happy to run ten hours a day tuned to various shortwave stations: religious ranters and Chinese propaganda-stations are great background entertainment !!

Gotta love the sound of a 6V6 output-stage turned up loud.

[Biggles]

Paul (Unitaudio). I also have a Trio KR 6400 Receiver and it's used in the workshop at work every day. It's a Seventies? classic, looks great and performs well even though the FM signal is poor in that area. I have replaced the dial lamps which are the fuse type. I think you can still get them from Cricklewood. I had problems with an annoying intermittent rustle on one channel which turned out to be one of the small signal transistors in the amp. Apart from that it's been reliable considering it's age and the fact that it lived for quite a while in a skip before being rescued. The switches and pots are noisy on mine too but it's a "round tuit" job. And yes, the poor thing is neglected, being half buried under a pile of tools/spares/odds and ends most of the time.
Alan.

[unitaudio]

Hi Alan, I think the KR6400 dates from 1975. 45 watts R.M.S. per channel. And best of all, we got ours for the best price! Skips ain't what they used to be but we did alright for ourselves there, don't you think?

I'd like to be able to say all my other old electronic stuff is pristine and working but in all honesty, this house is just a massive round tuit pile! I say my "old" electronic stuff but I haven't anything here less than 25 years old apart from the tablet I'm writing this on and my laptop which is sadly dead now.

The vast majority of equipment I have has faults of one kind of another but I just tell people I'm stocking up on retirement projects! It shuts them up for the time being...

Regards,
Paul

[mark_in_manc]

Many, many things I own need a kind of 'oh, just wiggle that bit while bending it that way and blowing on it, and it works fine' kind of interaction. It's recently come (belatedly) home to me that in a family context, this means I need to be a fixture which comes along with all the 'things', in order to make them work to others' satisfaction. This is not possible and is becoming a problem; 'if you need something then choose one and buy it' needs to be more a part of my vocabulary.

I suppose an upside is that I will get first dibs on such 'things' as they head for the bin the first time they don't work, where they will become the partly-functional guilty pleasures which form the subject of this thread.

[MurphyNut]

We live in such a disposable age especially with more recent equipment.
I’m still using my iPod Classic, still going strong 10 years since I bought it new. Of course that’s all old hat now and it’s all moved over to Bluetooth.
So some extremely nice top of the range (in their day) iPod docks are going very cheap now and I’m taking advantage of that.

[1100 man]

Back in the late '80s or early '90's, I bought a second hand Gould OS3000 'scope from 'Stewart of Reading'. (remember them, they used to have a shop crammed with second hand test gear and used to advertise in 'Television' magazine). This replaced my ancient Telequipment D43 valve scope, which in turn replaced my home built one.
I used it throughout the '90's when I was a TV & video (and everything else)! repairman. It was in constant use in the early 2000's when I was repairing time lapse VCR's.
A couple of years ago when my interest in vintage tech was re kindled, it was dragged out of the corner into which it had been slung and pressed into service once again. It still works fine with a nice sharp trace, well, alright some of the pots and most of the switches need a good squirt of something and there are several dry joints but nothing a good thrashing now and again when the trace shifts off the screen won't sort
I really must give it some love one day, but 'if it ain't broke...'
Cheers Nick

[cashaw1972]

I got hold of a Philips BX653A 1950's bi-amp radio a few years back from an old guy. It had been a wedding present, rarely used but polished weekly by his late wife. After getting it home my first thought was to go through and re-cap it, but got scared off with the effort to disassemble it all, equally all the fixing screws had original Philips paper tags under them, the back had never been removed in 60 years ! It looked in showroom condition.

So I powered it on, it sounded beautiful. Better than beautiful, the dual amps gave rich bass and crisp treble so I decided to let it run until something failed and needed replacing.

That was 2 years ago, it is still often used a couple of hours a week and still sounds beautiful. Absolutely no filter hum. But I do feel guilty for not having done even the most basic filter cap replacements, which I will get around to doing some day.

[Lloyd 1985]

I have one of those Philips stereo valve radios, you might be ok not replacing any caps, I found all the important ones in mine were ceramic tubular types! And if the main smoother is ok then it'll probably be good for a few years to come.

Regards,
Lloyd

[paulsherwin]

Yes, Philips mostly stopped using waxies at the end of the 50s, and regular use may have kept the smoothers in good condition.

[ben]

Thinking about this, I have a few items in regular use that would benefit from a proper service. One is the main amp in the living room, a Technics from the late 80s that someone gave me - no idea who -with 'untouchable volume control' syndrome! I think the problem is that there's sticky damping grease on it - when warm it's pretty much fine, but if cold it must affect the spacing on the pot wipe/carbon track. It'll need some disassembly to get to properly, one day I'll strip it down.

The other is a Tandberg reel to reel - think this came from a forum member years ago - whose idler is now hard as a rock, sounds like a lawnmower if you dare to use it at 7.5 ips! I don't have a lathe but one day I'll have to try attaching it to a drill and skimming the outer layer off. Rerubbering would probably cost me more than the machine is worth!

[threeseven]

I've inherited a Philips Reverbeo radio which has been in the family from new. My father originally bought it, then he promoted himself to 'real' Hi-Fi and the Reverbeo went to grandparents. It stayed there, much cherished and cared for, then back to my father when they passed away.
I actually serviced it when I worked for CES! Nothing had actually failed but I installed new, original speakers, which were still in stock at Philips Croydon, new valves, one or two resistors that looked cooked, and a good clean. The one thing I couldn't get was the electroluminescent panel for the tuning dial.
Last time I used it was about 8 years ago and it worked fine then, sounds really quite good. It is still in extremely good condition as it is kept covered up. The piano finish is virtually perfect.

[Beobloke]

This thread is terrible!!!

I never plug anything in until it's been given a thorough clean and I have made safety checks on the plug and wiring. I've had too many bits of equipment that have turned out to have things like live and neutral reversed, earths disconnected, the wrong fuses fitted or even wires hanging out of the plug.

Not worth the risk in my opinion.

[electronicskip]

I have an Amstrad 8000 amp which I picked up at a carboot sale about 3 years ago.
Condition was okish, but instead of taking it apart and giving it the once over I just switched it on.

Works perfectly with the exception of a dirty volume control ,but ive not done anything about it ,and its used quite a bit with no ill effects.

[Biggles]

Oh Oh, I got it wrong Unitaudio. My Trio receiver is a KR2200, not a 6400. I think it must be the baby brother of the 6400 you have. I still stand by my original comments though. It is a really good bit of kit, and does the job day in day out without complaint. At a guess it is the same age as the 6400 and outputs about 10 Watts a channel, looking at the design of the amps. I remember an old Clarke and Smith FM valve tuner amp being used at high volume every day in a vehicle maintenance workshop in Kendal which I used to visit in a previous job. I wonder if it is still going? I did put a request in for it if they ever threw it out but I left the job before it failed, so it didn't happen! We always used to have to fix the vehicle workshops' tuner in my last job and bizarrely it always turned out to be a filament lamp in the dropper to a zener regulator. Never seen that configuration before or since. I also discovered today that someone skipped a gigantic valved PA amp a year or so back at work, but at a different depot, without telling me. I was nearly in tears.
Alan.

[unitaudio]

KR2200 is still a nice piece of gear, well built and equipped. I had one years ago. I'd guessed it to be 20 watts per channel but I shouldn't be suprised, the KR6400 at 45 watts per channel thinks it's 100 watts per channel! They punch well above their weight.

Yes, if my receiver exploded or electrocuted me on switching it on, I'd have deserved everything I got! I consider myself duly admonished and seriously promise to be less gung-ho in future.

Regards,
Paul

[RojDW48]

Originally Posted by Beobloke

This thread is terrible!!!

He's right you know! On the other hand about 6 years ago I bought a little early 60s Tripletone stereo amp. To be fair I did warm it up gently with a variac to be on the safe side. As there were no obvious problems I slotted it in to my computer set-up where it has reliably powered all sorts of odd speakers from computer, CD and on-line sources without the merest suggestion of a problem. Probably in use around 2 or 3 hours a day, every day in that time. I have always been rather fond of their rather well made little valve amps!