Thursday, April 4, 2024

The Road to Perdition -- High Voltage Thermatron Perdition

Yuck -- Not mine

In the AWA Bulletins that Armand gave me at Winterfest, I saw mention of an AWA PC Board intended to allow for the upgrade of the venerable Heathkit HP-23 power supply.  

I have an HP-23B.  It came with my HW-101.   I replaced the capacitors in the supply many years ago, but they were of marginal voltage specs back then (I think I was in the Dominican Republic) and they have likely dried out considerably since then.  I am nervous about firing this thing up.  I fear for the big transformer... 

So I'm going to order the AWA's upgrade PCB.  

Of course, the danger (!) is that this could lead me back into the world of high voltage thermatrons.  That HW-101 has been taunting me for years.  It NEEDS restoration.  The first step would be to fix up the Power Supply. 


73.  And one hand behind your back OM.  


2 comments:

  1. It isn't hard to do this with caps from Mouser or DigiKey

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  2. A few years ago I bought an 1940s Philco console radio for $25. All I wanted from it from the huge power transformer, but alas it had been burned out. I did an autopsy and I took pictures as cautionary documentation for those who just plug-in old radios before re-capping them.

    https://photos.app.goo.gl/NVYkzwXwLpWKbJHb7

    The pictures remind me of the ones of tobacco-blackened lungs they used to scare us with in high school (and that the EU still requires on cigarette packaging).

    I ended up keeping the wire from the primary coil (for a wire antenna "some day") and I epoxied the 6 pound core to my "third-hand" as an anchor. I'd rather have had an untorched xformer, though. --K7TFC

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