Happy Thanksgiving....and The Fisher Saga continues....

 First of all, We'd like to wish everybody who drops by here a very Happy Thanksgiving. This is our 15th Thanksgiving together, so I have 15 more things to be thankful for!

The work is proceeding quickly on the Fisher receiver now that I have sufficient time to devote to it. So far I've replaced 17 electrolytic capacitors that were under-rated. You simply don't run 24 Volts on a capacitor rated at 25 Volts. You have zero safety margin if the Line Voltage rises a few Volts, and I've seen a low of 116 Volts, and a high of 121 Volts, here at the house. Most of those were on the Power Supply Board,  six were in the Tone Amplifier Board and two were on the Equalization Board.

I soldered all of the wire wrap connections to their pins on the boards, and cleaned up some iffy areas regarding how the wiring is run inside the chassis.

A veritable forest of new lamps!

Say "Ahhhhhhhh...."

All the electrolytic capacitors removed.

And replaced with new, higher Voltage, and a higher temperature rating.

I did the same to the Tone Amplifier Board and the Equalization Board.

If I'm able to move when we get back from Dinner on Thanksgiving, I'll dress all the leads into their spaces, and replace the mini cable ties Fisher used.

And this completes the bottom side of the chassis

Drive safe be careful of any bad weather, and enjoy Thanksgiving. I have a LOT to be thankful for this year.

What I've Been Up To....

Started this post on Monday, then came down with a head cold, which is now progressing South. Feeling better, but still a bit woozy......

Tonight's cold and blustery, a Good Night to stay downstairs, drink hot cocoa, and continue the work on the Fisher stereo for my friend. Since I've scaled back garage operations for the year, and everything's been "Winterized" outside, I'm able to spend several hours or more on it daily.  I'm really embarrassed about taking so long on this, but I don't generally take in any outside work until mid-October or so. He brought this to me in mid-April, and I was only out of the Hospital for a month or so from the Dental Emergency that almost turned off my lights, and was just getting back on my feet.

It was a mess, having been (sloppily) worked on by several people before me.

This is the back side of the front panel. All the yellow, orange, and white wires connected to the brown circuit board are for the fourteen individual little light bulbs that were glued into the back of the panel to light the indicator when that function was activated. I tried really hard earlier this year to find a replacement bulb with lead wires attached. I'd seen them before in various modeling supply magazines, as they're used to light up the insides of scale buildings and such. Reasonably priced, too. BUT....they're all 12 Volts. The bulbs in the receiver are 8 Volts. If you run a 12V bulb on 8 Volts, it ain't gonna be very bright! It had three different kinds of bulbs in it, most were crudely soldered on to the original wires, and the connection wrapped with a bit of electrical tape. Some were dead, some were very dim, and a couple had fallen out of the panel, leaving the indicator for that function in the dark.

All of the wiring on this board had to be removed, the pins cleaned, the main harness wires put back on, and then the bulbs get soldered in. Whoever built this for Fisher didn't pay attention the the details. The soldered the leads for the bulbs to the pins on the board, and then they wire wrapped the main harness wires on! Changing a bad bulb just went from ~15 minutes to over an hour.

Per bulb.

And it turns out that most of the wire wraps weren't done properly, and they slid right off the pin! Wire wrapping is capable of producing a very reliable "gas tight" seal between the wire and the pin. It normally takes a special tool to unwrap the wire from the pin, but not here. Not wrapping them tight enough will cause intermittent connections at some time in the future, and they're NOT fun to troubleshoot. BTDT, DAMHIK!

Looks much better now that it's cleaned up.

This is the gut pile...

....and these are the lamp assemblies I made to replace them. Lamps are rated at at 8VAC, and expected life is 10,000 hours.

Since this receiver is loaded with wire wraps on all the boards, I'm going to add a drop of soldering flux to each of them, and then solder them. Problems solved, and future problems averted.

Early bedtime tonight. Still not running at 100%. I blame Well Seasoned Fool for the cold!

Interesting Flight Path

 Couldn't determine which aircraft flew this, but it caught my eye...

Happy Veteran's Day

 To all who served, I am deeply in your debt. Thank you all for your service, sacrifice, dedication, and loyalty to the USA.

I am humbled to count you as friends....

Ready For Winter!

 Sucked out the old gas from the tank with a "99 Cent Store" turkey baster so I could get all the sediment out, then drained what was left. 

Flushed the carb with a bit of Gumout and ran a small brush through the line and fittings. Put things back on, and filled it up with fresh Pure Gas and Sta-Bil, and it fired right up. Got it warm and then shut it off so the engine could heat soak, and then ran it again back up to temperature.

Brushed off two years of dust, and then went over it with some Meguiar's Quick Detailer while the oil was draining.

Put fresh oil in it and started it up. Again, it fired right up.

Gave Sweet Little Wife some "How To Start and Operate It" training, and parked it back in the garage.

All snow removal systems are now GO! for use.

Winter Comes In With Epic Snowfalls!

 Still here and cruising along. FAR better than last year. Even loaded up the fireplace and lit it. SLW and I are going to pop some corn, and watch Holiday Inn on the TeeVee.

Anywhoo....It started raining yesterday, and by this morning we had ~1" of snow on the cars, trucks, and yards.  The streets (up here...) are still warm, so it's not sticking on the roads. As of 2145 MST we've received .4" of rain, and the rain gauge stopped as the rain turned to snow, then picked up again when it got warmer and rained some more. Started off as rain around 0900, then turned to "Wintry Mix", and now it's snowing.  We had an inch on Thursday that melted in a few hours, and an inch or so this morning, that hasn't melted.

Down by Denver is another story. They've received around 8", with another 6~8" forecast overnight. ALL the highways are closed South and East of Denver. Traffic is a nightmare, and many vehicles are stranded. Further South, into New Mexico, things are even worse. NWS is calling it a "Historic Snowfall for November", and the Northern part of NM is basically shut down.

East of Denver out on the plains is bleak. I think I heard there was about 12", and 6~10" is expected.

Luna is enjoying it, for now. Don't know how she'll react when it's 15*, but she's MUCH more an outside dog than Pebbles was. She's definitely a ColoRADo dog.

So keep warm and dry, keep your head on a swivel, and enjoy your weekend, if possible!