Date   : Sat, 12 Nov 2005 19:10:38 +0000
From   : Jules Richardson <julesrichardsonuk@...>
Subject: Re: Guess age from serial number? - Holy smoking Beebs,

Annihilannic wrote:
> After a bit of searching I located those capacitors with the help of the 
> clues Mike Foot posted, marked in blue on the photo here (one of them is 
> hidden under those wires and connectors).
> 
> http://galaxy4.net/misc/beeb_power_supply.jpg
> 
> They both look healthy from the outside? 

Hmm, yeah. There's not a third one is there? Often they have one 
live-earth, one neutral-earth and a third between live and neutral..

Sometimes these caps split at the bottom and not the top, but you'd 
probably see brown yuck on the PCB if so.

 > What *does* look odd are the
> brown parts on the transformer (marked in green) and the widget beside 
> it (marked in red) which look like dried honey... or spilt black coffee.

I think that's just normal transformer resin - wouldn't worry about it.

The other possibility is that a tanatlum capacitor (tiny little 
bead-shaped caps) let go somewhere - these can also let out a lot of 
smoke when they fail (sometimes they just outright explode!). Maybe 
check the main PCB - I can't remember if any such caps are used or not.

I'm back in the UK next week finally, so I'll try to remember to dig a 
beeb out and have a look inside for possible culprits...

cheers

Jules