Hello to everyone!
I'm a new member of this fantastic forum. I'm from Pisa and i have a great passion for electronics and especially for vintage electronics. I collect and repair vintage tubes radio for hobby. I decided to post my first ever vintage flip clock radio in this forum.
I bought this radio in december 2016 at a flea market located in Florence for 10 € (12 dollars). When i turned it on for the first time the radio didn't works and the clock was stuck so i started the restoration:
For the clock, i simply put some WD40 in the motor mechanism for remove the oxidation and some crappy dust and after 2 minutes of wait the motor has started to move as the old times. I noted that the entire mechanism is branded "Copal" though the radio was made in hong kong. Another easy thing that i replaced was the neon bulb with a new one because the original was very weak.
The radio restoration wasn't so easy as for the clock because it was completly mute in AM and FM. So, i firstly replaced all the electrolytic capacitors with some new ones (of the same value but with higher voltages).In my experience of restoring old electronics stuff i noted that the 70% of the problem are crated by faulty old electrolytic capacitors. After that, the radio doesn't work so good because of some false contact. After a careful analysis on the switches and on the potentiometers i thought that the problem was created with some cold solder joints and in fact i was right. To resolve the problem i pressed on every solder joint with a screw driver for locate the cold solder and once that i located it i just added some new solder for reform the joint. After all this work the radio started to works porperly with a great satisfaction.
A great surpise when i opened it for the first time was the schematic locaded on the bottom of the chassis !
All the photos that i posted are after the restoration.
I hope you find this post interesting and usefull.
Please let me know If you have some question about some tips and trick on vintage electronics restoration!
Mattia
I'm a new member of this fantastic forum. I'm from Pisa and i have a great passion for electronics and especially for vintage electronics. I collect and repair vintage tubes radio for hobby. I decided to post my first ever vintage flip clock radio in this forum.
I bought this radio in december 2016 at a flea market located in Florence for 10 € (12 dollars). When i turned it on for the first time the radio didn't works and the clock was stuck so i started the restoration:
For the clock, i simply put some WD40 in the motor mechanism for remove the oxidation and some crappy dust and after 2 minutes of wait the motor has started to move as the old times. I noted that the entire mechanism is branded "Copal" though the radio was made in hong kong. Another easy thing that i replaced was the neon bulb with a new one because the original was very weak.
The radio restoration wasn't so easy as for the clock because it was completly mute in AM and FM. So, i firstly replaced all the electrolytic capacitors with some new ones (of the same value but with higher voltages).In my experience of restoring old electronics stuff i noted that the 70% of the problem are crated by faulty old electrolytic capacitors. After that, the radio doesn't work so good because of some false contact. After a careful analysis on the switches and on the potentiometers i thought that the problem was created with some cold solder joints and in fact i was right. To resolve the problem i pressed on every solder joint with a screw driver for locate the cold solder and once that i located it i just added some new solder for reform the joint. After all this work the radio started to works porperly with a great satisfaction.
A great surpise when i opened it for the first time was the schematic locaded on the bottom of the chassis !
All the photos that i posted are after the restoration.
I hope you find this post interesting and usefull.
Please let me know If you have some question about some tips and trick on vintage electronics restoration!
Mattia
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