[TenTec] Orion II DOA

[Ron Castro]

For those of you who have been following the thread on my Orion II failure, I just heard back from the factory that the problem was traced to the large filter capacitors on the power distribution board.  They didn't tell me over the phone what the specific capacitors were, but there are three 470 uF units, C6, C7 and C9 on the A9 board which were most likely the "usual suspects" that were rounded up.

I have heard that these caps run fairly hot under normal conditions, and if any of you replace them in the future, I would recommend looking for low ESR caps that are rated for 105 C temperature operation.  Looking over the Mouser catalog, stock number 140-ESRL50V470-RC, manufactured by Xicon looks like a good candidate, although I don't know if they will physically fit in where the originals did.  For $1.35 each, it's probably not a bad gamble to try them!

         Ron N6IE
      www.N6IE.com