Replacing Electrolytic Can Capacitors in Vintage Electronics 

Thank you Mark, I am 73 years old and just getting myself familiar with Electronic and Radio, your video is priceless specially for people like me , I just wanted you to know there are many people like me, and only one of you who patiently explaing capacitors to your audience. Thanks again.

I'm a visual learner, so this was presented perfectly to me! I'm planning on jumping into antique electronics repair when I retire in seven years! I'm in learning mode, right now! I took a B.E.& E course during my hitch with the Navy. Thanks for this tutorial! Jim.

Dear Mark, before I start I wish you a good recovery after your unpleasant experience in the hospital. And wish you and your family the best. Take your time and continue to make beautiful and instructive videos. I will keep following you from the Netherlands. Greetings, Ton

Thanks for this, especially for the Hayseed link!

Good one Mark! I love these basic educational type videos. As a nooby with only one restoration under my belt, videos like this help me gain confidence in taking on other projects. Take care and much appreciated.

The best instruction for this type of installation that I’ve seen. Answered all of the questions of installation that I wasn’t sure of. Thanks and I’ve subscribed.

Thanks to you I found out about Hayseed Hamfest and got 3 custom can caps made for my 61 year old Pilot 216a preamp. I figured their age and the black goo oozing out of them indicated it was time to change them ;) Thanks for the great videos!

My biggest problem is getting a case shock, almost 90 volts ac on the outside of my SX-99 Hallicrafters. Looks like you have set my mind to it as you made me more comfortable, thank you KG5AJP

That narration voice is great, sounds just like Mike Judge doing one of his B&B voices!

Thanks for another great video , Mark . Very informative as always ! I hope your recovery is quick and complete .

I do appreciate your videos and the easy way you make it understandable. I am a retired aerospace electronic technician. I come from I guess the old school where we troubleshot down to component level. I really like your channel and do share it.

Hey Mark, Greetings from Cedar Rapids, Iowa I see the can cap is made here in CR :) Sorry to hear about the life changing health scare! Hope your feeling better!!! Stay positive and get well! As always great video! Thanks for all you do!!!

This is the first of your videos I have watched and I am glad I did. The note regarding the rectifier tubes and how the capacitance affects them gave me pause for thought.

Great advice. Super video. Much appreciated. I'm in the middle of refurbishing an old Eico signal tracer. So, this topic was right on for me. Thanks.

Tom over at Hayseed is awesome, he took care of my order. He gave me a free can capacitor after a top cover fell off from one of their capacitor that was on a Macintosh MX-110 that I bought.

These are important videos. I am a nearly 40 year veteran of the digital boom. I desparately need real life guidance in your field. The simple things, like "restuffing" have become lore. My instinct screams BS. Without someone real to learn from, I will have to make endless mistakes. Sadly, not enough time for that anymore.

Great video Mark, as always!

Great video for antique radios as well as amps!

Hi Mark, thank you for the info on the “Hayseed Hamfest” guys. This is really going to come in handy in the future and their prices are actually pretty darn good compared to some of the units out in the interverse. Very good builds if you aren’t in a big hurry.

This is just the post I needed. So detailed and well explained. It really got me unstuck..Thankyou..👍

Excellent Video. I hope you are feeling better, don't push too hard I'm sure all your subscribers can wait for the next videos. Your health is more important,

You are beyond compare Mark! I work in the same fashion i.e, taking a photograph, making a hand drawing, mentioning the colours of the wires & putting serial number tabs on the wires & cover them with sellotape so that the number on the tab doesn't get washed during isopropyl alcohol cleaning. At time I used to laugh on myself because I used to think that my working style is too much childish but today I have got a lot of moral boost seeing your work! Had I known your WhatsApp number I would have sent some photographs of my work which you would have definitely appreciated, I believe! Thank you very much for your valued guidance,Mark!👍😊

Thanks for the explanations!

Great video with lots of good advice, thank you.

Great video. I needed to know all this for my current project.

Would you consider making a video on the process of re-stuffing a can cap for those non USA fan boys that haven't access to these companies. Thanks Mark for your very educational uploads. I'm learning something new with every one.

Very thorough video. Thank you!

EDIT: Well i had ordered some regular aluminum electrolytic radial capacitors in modern values to replace an on multi stage 80 uf x 80 uf x 40 uf (all at 300 vdc) right after watching this video. But i couldnt help but think about how the current multi stage cap was obviously bloated and bad and how it would be an eye sore to keep it in and stuff it with new caps or just place the new caps under it. So i thought it couldnt hurt to request a quote from Hayseed Hamfest. I will say it did take them about a week to get me the quote and the invoice but i was pleasantly surprised to find that they could do it for $27 pus $6 for shipping. I think thats a great deal for a custom cap if youre working on a project where you care to keep the original aesthetics of the components as close to original as possible. Or if you just dont have the available space for individual caps. And i was also really impressed with Hayseed Hamfest's options. They were able to made me a damn near exacting match with the only difference being the new cap will be slightly shorter (by request). They even let you pick the color codes for each capacitance value. And they seemed very professional and capable in all our correspondence. Now i cant in good faith recommend them until i have seen my order through to its testing and installation whenever it arrives in a few months but i will say that im really happy to know that this is an option at such a reasonable price.. This was absolutly wonderful information. Im a guitar player who builds guitars, pedals and does mods and repairs to tube an solid state amps as a hobby. But recently i bought my grandfathers home after he passed away and moved in. He was a radio operator in WWII and a HAM radio operator from the time he returned from WWII until his passing. So when i moved in i noticed an old redio in the barn he must have used while he was out there working. And i looked it up and found a similar model that was a Solid State version and assumed it was also a solid state version.....sadly it wasnt. And now about 5 years later when going to fix it ive discovered it to be a tube radio lol. I would have loved to fix it sooner had i known. Anyways, most of my repair and mod work on tube amps has been one modern equipment so these multi stage caps are new to me. My grandfathers radio that im fixing up is a Realtone Mutiplex with 12 tubes (6BM8 based power section). And it has a multistage capacitor thats 80uf x 80uf x 40 uf that is certainly bad, not completely unfunctional but close enough lol. Try as i might i wasnt able to find an exact replacement anywhere and i was wondering if i could use three stand alone radial caps instead on a diy board or possibly concealed in a tube with the dimensions of the original multi stage cap. So this video was exactly what i wanted to see. To the point and gave me exactly the info i was after. Thank you very much for taking the time to put this together. Looking forward to checking out your other content!

Nice hand-on video. Glad you're feeling good enough to take the time - or perhaps it's hard to sit around doing nothing!

I learned a lot. Thanks for sharing your knowledge :-)

I have delt with Hayseed in re-builing some Ham gear and they are great !

Thank you for this, because I have two record players that I've bought from someone, and one is in rougher shape than the other. They're both Newcomb's, and I have a model ED-10 and an ED-10C (the smaller version). I'm trying to replace the capacitors in both of them.

Very well done video and explanation.

Thanks so much. I was wondering how to install these!

fabulous thank you! I believe now I have increased my capacities.

I would check the actual value of the surrounding resistors first, but with metal film types readily available, and more reliable than carbon film, a good idea to replace, given their location near a metal can capacitor you are replacing anyway. Thanks for the post. A very comprehensive description, and only one point I would make is about the wax-paper capacitors which operate with high voltage, to check for leakage, and replace with mylar types, less prone to leakage. Their failure can present symptoms similar to poor emission from a tube...

EXCELLENT VIDEO, thank you.

Mark it would be awesome if you could do a series of your favorite audio gear, stating with your favorite 10 tube integrated amps and telling why you choose them. I am a big fan of Fisher X202B, X1000, Harman Kardon Award A500, A700, Sherwood S5500 and so on... Thanks

Great tutorial!

Thank you Sir happy to learn

Absolutely FIRST CLASS

Thanks for the tips!

I request you to please upload a video on FM tuner alignment in your style, Mark!😊

Very nice video thank's for sharing Mark. I needed this type of information because i'm about to start restoring a 1937 RCA Victor model 87-K am radio console. It probably sat in a barn for decades so the chassis was corroded beyond belief. I cleaned it as best as i could in hopes of getting the unit running again. But as i am about to start re capping (right after i change the power cord to a healthy polarized/grounded one) i'm trying to figure out just how to replace the big electrolytic caps. Their bases are plastic screw in type with a big lock washer holding them tightly to the chassis underneath, but one of them has ben toppled over at one point so the plastic threads are shot and the lock washer wont grab any more. All 3 of these cans only have 2 wires coming out of them, one can has an open thin washer soldered to one of the wire, so i think they are not multi section caps logically. So my question is; do you think it is possible at all to have these types of caps made by Hayseed Hamfest or an other company ? i'll write them with pictures of course, but i just though i'd ask you first. Again thank's for sharing this video, it was helpful indeed.

Hi there. Wonderful video. Very informative. You have covered the theory and practice, very well. Thank you so much. I was wondering if there is simple way to find out which Caps need to be replaced, without taking them out of the circuit, in a Vintage gear. This will be very very helpful, if you can please answer and may be make a separate video for this.

Great Video Thank You

great stuff!

Someone upstairs above you was really stomping around.

Good stuff here !

Very interesting. While I understand the reasons stated for not increasing the value of the electrolytic caps (more than one value higher) if you can't replace like for like, but what are the disadvantages/effects on the amp and it's performance of going lower in capacitance? ie. 33uf to 16uf?

An HF85! My fav preamp.

Thank you.

Thank Mark, take it easy now. - Eddy

Heathkit A-7e amplifier. Original schematic has first section of can cap at 40uF @450vdc. This is coming off a 5Y3GT. The data sheet on the 5Y3GT has that capacitance value at 20uF! The can cap that is in place is 40uF @450v. The capacitance value looks to be updated on a couple of spec sheets that I have looked at. Should I go ahead with replacing the original cap values? Thanks!

A "NOS" cap is often in worse condition than the one your replacing. NOS caps have not had power applied to them for possibly decades. The caps in your equipment at least have been used over their lifetime and reform slightly every time you power the device on. I have had customers send in equipment with a set of NOS caps to use and when tested the NOS caps were worse than the ones in the radio.

Did you check the resistance of the resistor from the cathode of the 6X4? In it's position it would have been stressed over the years. It looks like an Alan Bradley so should be okay, but still good to put a meter on it to be sure.

Hi, thank you for all of the great teaching. Excellent videos. Also, your work, and knowledge, is greatly appreciated. I have Marantz 4400 receiver. I have a couple questions, Do you have any advice on the 4400? Do you have videos of 4400 restoration. I have two of them. First is completely original. Second is restored, with nichicon pw capacitors, ect. I was wondering about the power supply, and capacitors to use, being close to factory specs. Also, main filter capacitors. Your knowledge, and work is greatly appreciated. Also, of you mind me asking, do you have an email address to contact You? Thank you. Dustin Can I test my dc offset, and bias, with an anolog meter, and have better accurate measurements than a dmm.

How did you know to assign the triangle, square, etc. to the diagram in the location you drew them? I have a cardboard electro for a 6D111 radio with symbols but no idea which symbol goes with which tab? I have the schematic and know the resistors but am lost as to how to orient the replacement.

Thanks for sharing! This was very useful. I was just wondering, how much do you charge for a repair like the one you show at the end of the video? Thanks!

I have a heathkit aa-151 tube amp. It has hum sound. So replaced filter can caps can help to reduce hum sound?

i need a capacitor the has two sections but am having great difficulty finding any thing close, can you tell me a source that sells and /or makes nearly everything?

I have old tube radio want replace multi section capacitor color coded I want use a can capacitor if I can to keep right nostalgic. Specs 400 volt yellow 30 mfd 250volt red 30 mfd 630 volt blue 20 mfd and 20 mfd green What can capacitor recommend voltage and micofarad?

Thanks for another cool vid, Mark, but please take it nice n’ easy for a little bit, even though I’m pretty sure the HiFi repair bug is just what you need to get feeling better and back to normal. Just keep in mind, we can wait for vids. Your health is more important to everyone. Quick question if you don’t mind, but couldn’t you have used one of those customized can caps in the empty spots on the Dynaco Mk3 monoblock kits instead of those new power supply PCB’s rather than putting “dummy” ones in for aesthetic reasons? Wasn't the idea that it needed to have more modern specs such as higher capacitance and/or voltage? Take it easy, Mark.

Electronics Teachers and Instructors need to teach their students about the, " Left Hand Rule " when testing HV circuits !! That rule is, " Keep Your Left Hand, in your Pocket " !!! That, keeps your " Heart " from becoming a component in a circuit to ground !!

I have issues with the other components all over the can cap, and trying to make everything fit well, im not that good

Anyone see an issue with using multiple sections of a can cap to create a needed value. Say I need a 60 40 20. Could I use a 40 40 20 20 and wire in parallel a 40 and 20 section to make a needed 60?

So, if I understand correctly, the only reasons to replace an electrolytic can with another electrolytic can is aesthetics and simplicity? If you can restuff an old can then you COULD replace each section of the can capacitor with a radial or axial lead electrolytic, couldn't you? Is an electrolytic can capacitor superior to three individual capacitors in some way?

After the new can is in how do you know which tab is for which cap value while looking at the bottom?

I know can heght can be a bigger problem with older solid state and tube equipment but i have a Magnavox Astro-Sonic from 1965 and the filter capacitor is quite small

something that old I wouldn't apply power to it unless all the caps were replaced. Then I would use a Variac to slowly bring it up

dose it change the sound?

I ll go with the less expensive solution,next owner can change if he likes,no dont care if old radio has modern caps inside! Radio or reel to reel or whatever should be gratefull!

OK, so if I'm NOT using a tube rectifier "solid state" is it OK to increase the capacitance or the first capacitor?

Well my hi fi Amp is 31 years old and still run on original japanese capacitors.

No telling the hours put into the “stuffed” capped.. or cans

It's BETTER to replace an old, bad, cap with an equally old one, that's been in use, over the years, than a "NOS" one, that's been just sitting on the shelf. Electrolytics tend to go bad, if they don't have a polarizing voltage applied, for an extended time.

Are all coupling caps electrolytic

Blueglow Electronics, Suggesting that you replace an old cap with a NEW can style cap can be a disservice. The answer goes on and on... but the "less simple answer" is covered by Paul Carlson of Mr Carlson's Lab video series on Patreon channel. Another thing is that the modern version of a can cap is made to different specs than the old one you replace, ESPECIALLY in voltage rating, which is MUCH more specific than the older design... so, use a HIGHER voltage rated cap than the old one to stay safe. Do NOT consider having a custom cap made, for so many reasons that I can't enumerate them here. de KQ2E