Gave up on recapping my Commodore 64 after a local repair shop owner showed me why

I spent almost 3 months trying to recap a Commodore 64 motherboard I found at a garage sale near Akron. Brought it to this older guy who runs a retro repair shop out of his basement, and he showed me on his scope that half the caps were still within spec. He said people swap them out just because they look old, but the original ones often work fine for another 10 years. I felt kinda dumb for ordering that $35 kit from eBay without testing first. Now I always borrow his ESR meter before I replace anything. Has anyone else found that original parts last longer than the hype suggests?

2 comments

2 Comments

willow73227d ago

Did you end up testing the rest of the caps after he showed you that, or just leave it as is?

the_mason27d ago

yeah but testing the caps is only half the story though. the old caps might read fine on an esr meter but they can still fail under load or at higher temps once the board has been running for a while. i'd still swap them if i was gonna use the machine regularly, just to be safe.