Rebuilding Philco 87 condenser box with pics - Printable Version

+- The PHILCO Phorum (https://philcoradio.com/phorum)
+-- Forum: Philco Radio Discussions (https://philcoradio.com/phorum/forumdisplay.php?fid=5)
+--- Forum: Philco Electronic Restoration (https://philcoradio.com/phorum/forumdisplay.php?fid=8)
+--- Thread: Rebuilding Philco 87 condenser box with pics (/showthread.php?tid=4150)

---

Rebuilding Philco 87 condenser box with pics - DKinYORKpa - 01-15-2012

Having never done this sort of thing before, I thought that I'd share my experience and choices. Since un-soldering and removing all of the wires to this box seemed tedious, I disconnected the box from the chassis and carefully separated the box from its bottom (the part that I didn't want to remove the wires from). This took a little coaxing and wiggling, but eventually I was able to reach in and snip all of the wires. After some cleaning and unsoldering the lugs, I had ten nice clean terminals. I did crack the strip slightly under the chassis. A longer, thinner wire cutter would have helped.

[Image: http://i191.photobucket.com/albums/z309/jewel5651/2012%20RADIOS%20GENERAL/2e6402f4.jpg]

Stepping outside with my heat gun and various tools, I finally was able to pull out the caps. I was unable to quickly and easily soften up the guts, though. I think patience is key here.

[Image: http://i191.photobucket.com/albums/z309/jewel5651/2012%20RADIOS%20GENERAL/65bb7672.jpg]

Next I cut some pieces of plywood to make an L shaped inert for the box. I fastened 2- 5 lug terminal strips across from each other and numbered them to best fit all of the caps. Despite all of my careful work, I managed to forget a 2.0 mfd and one 1.0 should have been a .1. I hadn't soldered yet, so no problem. Then I put a wire to every terminal lug. I made them all the same length, but I could have sized each one. With longer terminal strips, the ground lug could have been shared by 2 lugs and I wouldn't have had so many connections on that one lug.

[Image: http://i191.photobucket.com/albums/z309/jewel5651/2012%20RADIOS%20GENERAL/f5c55517.jpg]

Then it was a matter of connecting each wire to the correct lug on the chassis strip.

[Image: http://i191.photobucket.com/albums/z309/jewel5651/2012%20RADIOS%20GENERAL/67e50376.jpg]

There was plenty of room in the box for the wires, so as I lowered the box down, I had to push a few of them out of the way.

[Image: http://i191.photobucket.com/albums/z309/jewel5651/2012%20RADIOS%20GENERAL/519b10fa.jpg]

It slid down the rest of the way nicely and I reattached the screws. Talk about a Let's-see-what-happens moment........well, the hum is gone (mostly) and it works a lot better. Now for that neutralizing business.......great, something else for the first time.

---

Re: Rebuilding Philco 87 condenser box with pics - Radioroslyn - 01-15-2012

Messy ain't it! Nice job!! For the extra hum adj the hum pot over by the power transformer for least hum.
Terry

---