Straighten Tuning Capacitor Plates - Printable Version

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Straighten Tuning Capacitor Plates - Robin R. Roeckers - 12-14-2010

I purchased an early 89 chassis with speaker online and when it arrived the speaker had bounced around in the box and flattened some of the tuning capacitor plates. Can these be straightened and if so, how?

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Re: Straighten Tuning Capacitor Plates - codefox1 - 12-14-2010

Well if the damage is not too bad, try to get the capacitor fully open, and then straighten the blades one by one by hand. I sometimes use a dull knife blade as a sort of an anvil while straightening out these blades.

You should be able to slip a piece of paper between each rotor/stator gap without it getting caught.

When you are able to close and open the capacitor without any obvious binding, testing can be done
Disconnect the leads and put a VTVM across each section. As you close the capacitor, you will immediately know if a short occurs. Use the paper trick to see which plate or plates are touching, and then readjust them.

All this is a lot easier to do if you disconnect the capacitor and physically remove it from the chassis. That way you can really clean it up, re oil the bearings, etc... Take a few pictures and label everything so you will not have any problems getting it together again.

There are probably more tricks out there that others will share.

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