Re-capping vintage main boards with radials

[uniserver]

Ya i know this makes some of you cringe. I personally don't really have an opinion any more. As long as it works when i'm done, and the customer is happy, that is all I really care about.

Anyways, this customer gave me a stack of boards to do, he wanted all radials. He feels radials are going to last longer, and are more robust then SMT electrolytics.

So I have a couple styles i'm using to make sure and lay them flat on the PCB... I, like most people hate christmas trees, and pad rippage.

1. Nip and lay - (if you have enough space)



2. Trim and bend over - (if you have space issues)



3. Diagonal Cut - (if you have to approach the pads at an angle)



Just a few tid bits i'd like to share, might be helpful if you find your self with a bag o radials and feel like doing a re-cap.

I personally prefer to stick with SMT OEM Lytics, I just just like the stock look my self.

They are much quicker for me to install, then an all radial thing like this.

 

[Unknown_K]

I used some radials on a few IBM PS/2 floppy drives and they look ok and work great (odd ratings that I could not find cheap SMT's for). Never used anything but SMT for my Macs.

 

[Ike]

I've used nothing but radials on my macs.

The SMD components look better and may last longer, but the radials are easier to replace when they crap out. Plus I can find then much easier locally.

And I like myself to believe that when one of the radial caps leak, it wont damage the board as much because they are floating...

I like the 'Trim and bend over' approach Uniserver, didn't think of that myself.