Repair : C128 PSU working ( but was DOA ).

I've done a lot of reading about how crap the Epoxy filled c64 power supplies are ( do not use them, put them in the bin ).  Everyone however seems to agree that the c128 power supplies are great and worth using.  I never got a power supply with either of my c128 so I thought I'd get one.

Off to Ebay I go and get a "working" unit . . . yeah right.  When it arrives it's totally dead.  I have a look inside and the Caps have leaked and one of the fuses is in parts.  On further inspection BOTH fuses have not survived the bumpy ride to Northern Australia and to add to that the 1.4A fuse was only 1A . . . Hmmm . . .

That's cool, I can fix this and I was planning on re-capping it anyhow.

Here is the unit after I gave it a first initial clean and flushed the entire board.

You can still see some gunk around the 4th diode and where the resistor and the two wires join.  I used a desoldering gun to remove both of the caps and then used an interdental brush to make sure it was all as clean as possible before flushing the board again.

Desoldering guns are awesome, so after 5 seconds the Old caps are out and the New ones are in.
They are not exactly the same voltage spec, but the uF is exact.  You can go higher with the voltage without an issue ( just don't go lower ).  They are also good quality Panasonic ones.  Don't buy cheap caps.

 

Back it all goes into the case, I'm not turning this on until everything is in it's correct place.

During transport this tab broke off.  A little Tamiya liquid cement and you can't even tell it was broken.

At this point I've taken it outside and plugged it in with extra an extra RCD just to make sure the magic smoke didn't escape.  After a good run I tested the voltages, which ended up being 10V AC and 4.9V DC.  I'm pretty happy with that so on to the final phase.

 

 Plugging it into my secondary C128 and hey presto.

There's only one thing to do now and that's to replace the plug with so I don't need a travel adapter.

Repair : 1571 Power supply issues

When I bought my C128s I really wanted to get the floppy drive that was designed for it.  So I bought a 1571.  Like most retro gear it was sold as working, but there were . . . problems.

The drive would power up but not stay on once the disk was being accessed and it would reset.  The problem was obvious bad power supply.

Back to Google I go and I found the wonderful blog World of Jani with what I needed.

http://blog.worldofjani.com/?p=2131

I wasn't too keen on the original bare power supply or trying to fix it.  I wasn't able to get that model mentioned in Jani's blog either.  In the end I picked up another caged Mean Well power supply from RS components and set to work.

STOP . . . These voltages will, KILL YOU . . . STOP

I don't recommend doing this at all, mains voltage is really dangerous.
Get someone qualified to do it for you.

This is the unit I ended up ordering and installing :

https://au.rs-online.com/web/p/embedded-switch-mode-power-supplies-smps/6447073/?sra=pstk

Now I have a beautifully functional 1571.