Tek AWG-2021 To recap or not?

[mabehem]

Hi there,

I recently acquired a Tek AWG-2021 from an EEVblog member. It works great but I'm wondering if I should recap it. This is not a TE that will be used a lot so you can conclude that I'm a TEA member.

I opened it last week to see what was lurking inside and was surprised to see... nothing. Not a single one was leaking; they all looks as good as when they left the factory. I took multitude of pictures of all the boards for reference. Even the PSU looks great. I noted the specs of all the cap I found except for the CRT board so I can pre-order if I feel like it.

The only thing I noticed is the lithium battery that reads about 2.2V. That will be changed. What are the side effects of losing this battery? Loss of NVRAM?

In general, to prolong the life of these caps, should I turn it on often or not?

Thanks
Mario

[bob91343]

If it ain't broke don't fix it.

[joeqsmith]

I have an old AWG2041.  For the age, it's a nice Arb.  There are a few post on this site about them where I was helping a member  understand about segmentation. 

Mine still has all of the original components.  It required service when I first received it but out side of that, it's been very reliable.   

I'm not a cap changer. 

[SilverSolder]

[...]
In general, to prolong the life of these caps, should I turn it on often or not?
[...]

I own quite a lot of old jun^h^h^h^h^h vintage test equipment.  I've definitely noticed that it loves getting used - I'm not sure if it is the warmth chasing humidity away or the reforming of capacitors that does it, but several items that I own become paragons of reliability if used say, once a month or so - whereas they get can get really cranky if left for half a year or more.   It also exercises the controls, relays, etc., which is likely also better for it than being left in the same position for extended periods.

Plus, it's hard to beat the cozy feeling of a room warmed and lit by a stack of old school tech doing its thing! 

[LazyJack]

It seems to be an Internet wisdom to recap. Why? Of my numerous vintage TE i only had to recap a few. That was based on troubleshooting, finding the bad capacitor an proving by measurement that it was bad. Preventively changing maybe some still good parts that were of same type as the bad ones and in the same part of the circuit.
But indisciminately replacing caps, just because people think that everyhing should be recapped is silly. Especially when it's not broken. And especially when people don't understand what needs to be replaced. Í've seen precision capacitors being ripped out and replaced to eBay junk in the timebase of an analog scope, because the clueless owner read that recapping woulf fix the no trace situation.
The awg 2021 is a fine piece of equipment. Mine happily working with all the original caps.Don't touch it unless you have a problem.

[DaJMasta]

If it ain't broke don't fix it.

If a cap dies, recap that one.  If it's used all over the board in critical places, maybe it's worth replacing more than just the damaged one (tag tantalums with more than one failure on a board, for example), otherwise why waste your time and money?  Good caps aren't that cheap and sucking them out and replacing them all can take a bit even with a good desoldering gun, so why bother?  If a cap in your old scope is dead it's probably because it's been in there for 30+ years or that it's been on 24/7 for years, so why replace all of them for occasional hobby use?  Your old scope doesn't need the uptime of a pacemaker, so I'm not sure why replacing parts based on aging (that's not effecting performance) makes sense.

[mabehem]

Thanks for the wise responses. I'll leave it alone except for the lithium battery.

After all it won't see much use so if it fails when I need it, I'll fix accordingly.