BTW, Biii - tip/suggestion - for those series-connected electrolytics you
probably should put a pair of equal value resistors - one across each series
capacitor, as the leakage currents will not be equal in each capacitor in
each series string and the DC voltage won't divide equally across each
capacitor unless you put individual "bleeder" or "swamping" resistors across
each cap in the series pair to equalize the DC across each capacitor in the
series! I'll be interested to see how it turns out! I never had a DX-100
"Benton Harbor Kilowatt"! I did have a DX-40 for a while, but no 160 on
that one, though! I do have an EF Johnson Navigator in pretty good condition
that needs to have all of its electrolytics replaced because of their age.
I does have 160 (and 11 meters also!).
Good luck and Merry Christmas!
73,
Charlie, K4OTV
-----Original Message-----
From: Topband [mailto:topband-bounces@contesting.com] On Behalf Of Bill
Cromwell
Sent: Friday, December 20, 2013 10:27 PM
To: 'top Band'
Subject: Topband: DX-100 adventure - progress
Hi,
Recently I posted about my DX-100 and an effort to get it usable in time
for the Stew Perry. I have made progress and it looks like I'll have it
ready to use in time and never mind about the holidays, the holiday mail
overload, etc.
I successfully recapped and tested the "low voltage" supply and changed
the circuit to choke input. I like doing that and some other hams
suggested doing it, too. So I did. The VFO and RF stages - excluding the
finals - sound very good on 160 through 40 meters. No chirp shows up at
all until I get to 20 meters and there is barely enough chirp to notice
if I pay attention. 15 meters and, finally, 10 meters there is
noticeable chirp and some drift. I didn't really let it warm up well
before I tried those higher bands. I was more interested in the 160
meter operation since that is the immediate goal.
I had to order new caps for the high voltage final amp plate supply. I
thought I had suitable caps but mine would have given me only 50 uF with
a pair in series. That is NOT enough. I am afraid the new caps will not
arrive with enough bench time left to make it for the Stew. So I doubled
down on the caps I already have. I built two banks of caps with two caps
each. Each set is a series pair of course and the two sets of caps are
in parallel to give the needed 100 uF at 900 volt rating. The center
connections of the two banks are also connected in parallel so that the
bleeder sees them as *ONE* pair of caps in series. The thing is built on
a pair of terminal strips with reinforced connection points to
accommodate the bleeder and switch wiring that was already in the
transmitter. I have it completely fabricated AND mounted in the DX-100.
This weekend I'll get to wire it and test it. Hopefully it will be ready
to operate. I'll be cleaning up some other messy wiring that previous
owners left in there and then put all the screws back in place. A little
DeOxit on a few more controls and then the smoke test.
And then... CQ de KU8H.
If the caps don't work out for some reason I can hope the new ones
arrive in time. I started taking pictures so maybe I'll finally do some
on-line show n tell when I'm done.
73,
Bill KU8H aka Santa Claus
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