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National Panasonic RX5100 Radio Cassette Repaired
By Jestine Yong on September 12, 2015
One of my friends brought this set to me mentioning that the performance of the set has become bad and the Radio is very weak. I switched it on and noticed that the complaint was genuine. (Please notice what he has done on the backside! He had stuck transparent tape, with a piece of paper, placed exactly on top of the screw holes. This is to prevent potter wasp blocking the holes, which is quite a common problem in Kerala, India. Even if you clean such a hole, the screw head will be corroded and will not hold the tip of the screw driver. Sometimes, the worm inside will make it slippery when the liquid spills from it in our attempts to clean the hole! So, we may have to use a soldering iron, heat the screw head and push it in, rendering that portion permanently unusable! Then alternative arrangement has to be made for fixing the cabinet!)
On opening the set, cleaning and dismantling, I could observe that there were several electrolytic capacitors that had burnt marks on the negative rail. The tank capacitor 2200/16V had leaked on to the board and the burning had made a dent on the PCB. A clear case of high voltage problem, unnoticed by the user and left for sometime in on condition. See picture below:
The ESR of many of these capacitors and those in the signal path, which had no visible symptoms showed way out of the permitted values. So, I decided to do my favourite work of replacing all the electrolytic capacitors in the Main Board, Radio Board and Control Board. Replaced the capacitors in the Radio board.
Did a thorough dry solder patch up on it. Replaced all electrolytic capacitors in the main board. This is a laborious job! We need to de-solder the caps, clean the holes, scrape the leads of the new caps, insert it, solder it and then cut it.
I touched on all the joints on all the boards including the power supply unit. After finishing the dry solder patch up, cleaned the board thoroughly. See how it shines line new!
Totally 56 electrolytic capacitors were replaced:
Tested the set connecting the Radio and tape deck, keeping it on the table. Radio worked just fine! Cleaned the tape mechanism (Forgot to take snap of this!). Observed that the left and right channel were not even. Cleaned the head. But there was no improvement. So, fed signal to the tape path. Noticed that when you feed signal to one channel, it was coming to the other also! Traced it to pre-amp IC No.AN6210. Signal from its out was ok. But when give it to inputs of tape, it was showing internal short (Signal leaking to other channel). Removed the IC and noticed that two pins had left burn marks on the board. Luckily I had this in my stock! Replaced. Set worked just fine in all respects. Reassembled it. The funny thing in this set is that we cannot remove the tape mechanism without removing the radio board, as the manual dial unit prevents its extraction. Since the rotating wheel fit on the tuning capacitor is on the other side of the PCB, the dial unit cannot be dismantled or lifted to extract the tape mechanism. Look at this ‘guy’ happily playing tape:
Another job completed satisfactorily!
This article was prepared for you by Parasuraman Subramanian from India. He is 65 years old and has more than 30 years’ experience in handling antiques equipment Valve Radio, Amps, Reel Tape Recorders and currently studying latest techs classes conduct by Kerala State Electronics Technicians’ Association. He was a BBA graduate, retired as MD of a USA company and presently working as Consultant Manager, Purchase & IT, in Irinjalakuda Cooperative Hospital.
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You may check on his previous repair article below:
https://www.jestineyong.com/rescue-of-a-sound-craft-mixer-epm8/
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9 Comments
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Yogesh Panchal
September 12, 2015 at 2:57 pm
Sir ,
Congratulations! for fix , Repairing old stuff is just fun and flavor of work satisfaction is immense.thanks for sharing your experience.
Gerald Millward
September 12, 2015 at 4:36 pm
Your patience, dedication and determination in replacing all those electrolytics is unequalled in my long experience of electronic repair!
randy
September 12, 2015 at 11:11 pm
wow, what a job that was! I hope the person was very respectful of all the work you had to do, must have taken hours to get all those caps replaced!
Joe
September 12, 2015 at 11:38 pm
Hello Parasuraman! Great job... I cant believe it that radio has so many capacitors!!!! Hope you got rewarded real well... As you, I fix vintage electronics which is what I like to do the most. Of course, I also fix T.V. and modern receivers, but nothing bring more satisfaction of seeing an old electronic equipment coming back to life!!! Good job in sharing this article with us!!!
Joe - K4JGA
JGA Electronic Repair Center
Casselberry, Fl. - USA
Mark
September 13, 2015 at 3:12 pm
Congratulations on your patience!
Humberto
September 15, 2015 at 1:34 am
Hi Sir., good job you have made in the restoration of this old model, congratulations.
Chris
September 16, 2015 at 4:14 am
Yeaaaa maaaan! 🙂
I can remember this type of radio when I was a child.
My grandpa owned one like this one.
I'm fascinated to see again one, and I'm very happy because you repaired it and saved it from the junk.
Great job!
My best regards.
pascual
December 2, 2016 at 8:05 pm
Hello.
God job.
but, one question....
What is the power amplifier chip???
Jitendra thomas
April 2, 2020 at 1:44 am
Mytape RX 5100T is not working, not showing the power indication what happened please explain