SONY ICF-SW1S

[Kaferlago]

Hi there,

here my new project, a little Sony receiver recap job.
The radio in almost NIB with it's original case full of never used accessories.

Radio works ok with earphone but sound way distorted when reproduced from the internal speaker. I did few research online and it seems just another bad caps plagued device. I hope no trace corrosion caused by the smelly leak.

I will add few pics of the repair as I go.

I think there is not much to ask for repair help itself in this moment,  I do have a process related question: how do you pull those evil smd electrolitic caps? What is the best technique?

I searched the forum but I could not find any thread on this.

[SeanB]

Common fault there, you basically use a fine pencil tip ( and a face mask to keep the smell down, or a fan to keep it away from you) to melt the solder on each side of the capacitor while using tweezers to lift the cap slightly on that side when the solder melts. Pop it off, place the new one ( there are a lot of small low voltage caps there to do, so do not get them wrong) and solder in place. Then when finished clean the board thoroughly with a small brush and IPA.

When finished curse the designers for using those cheap caps, and then again curse the bean counters who bought them as well.

Someday i will do my one that is sitting in a drawer, I just use the headphones at the moment if I want to use it.

[samnmax]

... how do you pull those evil smd electrolitic caps? What is the best technique?

I usually just wiggle them from side to side until the legs break 

BTW I also recapped a ICF-SW1, in my case there was some corrosion on the PCB and the headphone right channel was not working, even after recapping. I had to clean everything up and replace a tiny resistor (75 ohm if I recall correctly).

[Kaferlago]

Update:

I pulled out the caps, including the super one.
No major corrosion, just little soldermask damage under a cap.

I've measured all the ESR before desoldering the components, according to the ESR meter only one cap was still OK.
I also noted the measurement in one of the attached pictures, I'm curious to see the difference with the new caps in circuit.

@samnmax:

I made some experiment on scrap boards with the wiggle tequinique, I found it to be really slow with high chance to lift the pads. I think two irons works best for me.
This is how I do it:
- I add some fresh tin on the cap terminals,
- I use the two irons to melt the tine and pull the cap. I have consistent result with very short contact time (2sec. max) with iron temp of about 300°C.
- I then clean the pads with the desoldering gun I bough after seeing Dave's review on the thing. That tool is worth every single cent.

To resolder the caps last time I used solder paste heated with the iron, it worked but I don't like the idea of having solderpaste leftovers under the component.
This time I will tin the pad and try tack it in place. Let's see how it works.





 

[samnmax]

Well, I try to use the wiggle technique only in cramped boards where a big, powerful soldering iron (or two irons) doesn't fit.

Are you going to use proper SMD caps as replacement or will you use THT parts like I did? It's a quite tight fit inside the radio with THT parts.

[Kaferlago]

I'll use SMDs, I can solder them quite easily, I don't thik I'll be able to make a clean job with THT.

There is guy selling a ICF-SW1 recap kit on ebay in Germany, it's pricey though but it's all I need in one shot, including the supercap and a "superbright White LED".

I usually buy from RS Components, but it takes so much time to find the correct part from the catalogue, last time I ordered the caps for my scope I got them in 3 weeks 5 pcs delivered every 2 days... they probably store the parts in different EU locations but you don't know when you order them so you get 5 caps from Italy 10 fom Hungary and so on. Shipment cost is the same but it is so annoying (and stupid).

Any good EU part supplier for the hobbyist?

[Elecmuso]

I have just purchased one of these and expet to be replacing caps.

I'm not a radio enthusiast though. These seem very popular but my question is why?

Yes they are a wonderful gadget from that era but is there more to it? Are they able to receive extremely weak transmissions? Is it the sort wave that makes them desirable?

Cheers