Carver C1 going through rework

porkchop61

New Around These Parts
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Jul 12, 2022
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48
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Mansfield, CT USA
The rail voltages were within spec, but I haven't looked at ripple yet. That's the first thing I check/rebuild on vintage equipment. I'm obviously replacing all the filter caps.

There are two 120R and 91R voltage dropping resistors on each rail in the PS that should be looked at, as well as a 3.9M line to ground.
 

porkchop61

New Around These Parts
Joined
Jul 12, 2022
Messages
48
Location
Mansfield, CT USA
Interesting, I work in South Windsor as well

Nice of you to offer, but I only need one. I have a Bridgeport at work with 3-axis automation, so that’s what I’m going to use. Fine for making one for me. Maybe a group buy here would yield a higher number of parts and make more sense for a laser application.

Back to the main topic for a moment:
I‘m replacing the electrolytics in the signal path with non-polarized Nichicon MUSE ES. Does the orientation matter with these? I think it might for
RF applications, but not audio, I’m just not sure. I’d like to orient them all the same, just because I’m like that.
 

Dutch54

Journeyman
Joined
Jun 1, 2022
Messages
94
FYI guys - I upgraded my C1 with all 3 of Sniff's boards and have been extremely impressed with the results.
The green LEDs on your PS board in the PS1 photo look cool where did you get those and if by chance have a part number could I get it also.
 

fransa

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Oct 1, 2024
Messages
3
The Carver C1 preamplifier is getting some updates to make it work better. This includes changing old parts like capacitors and fixing any loose connections. These changes help improve sound quality and keep the preamp working well for a long time while keeping its classic look.
 

WOPL Sniffer

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Screw it
I ended up setting the output gain to -6 db on the C-1 btw

The RCA plates are scarce these days. I bought the last 3 from AJ and I only got 1 left. I have the drawing for it and I was thinking that instead of having them made of the heavy aluminum, I was going to scan it into the PCB site I use and have some spun up out of PCB material (they also make the pcb's out of aluminum but don't know the cost yet). Having them built by a machine shop is going to be too expensive. If I use the board house, I could try and have Plated through holes where the RCA's go through to toughen them up. ???? Just thinkin out loud.


Speaking of doing the RCA mod, I had a customer send me their C1 for some upgrades a couple months ago and I did the RCA mod on it (among other things) and had to do some repairs just to test it before I started working on it. Well, it turned out nice and tested quiet as a mouse, and when I shipped it back, I got a couple rude comments about the Red and Black RCA's I installed and the person said "It's common practice to use Red and White RCA's so you don't get them mixed up"!!!! Well, the chinee dude I use for my RCA source (26 per C1) only has red and black so that's what I use. The red and black bands on the jacks are just little rubber bands so I told the person to take the black rubbers off, go to hobby lobby and get a REAL small paint brush and a small bottle of white paint put the jacks in the drill and as it spins, paint the recessed area where the black band was, and put a couple coats on and wipe any drunk slippage off. Well customer was upset and then I showed the pic of the back of his unit that was sent to me and I said "What the Fuck, this is how buffalo Bob makes them" NO COLOR ON ANY RCA, see pic below. Never heard back from the person. If you have a special request on color, size, material etc.... Put it in your request for service, I will bend over backwards to try and accommodate my customers with green knobs, pink face plates pretty much whatever they want (or if they are brave and let me decide, you never know what I'll come up with but some people are just miserable and want YOU to be the same way..... Fuck that..... Anyway, I had a customer local wanted his C-1 done too so I took the black rubber bands off, and put the rca's in the chuck and painted the recess which Looked nice but thats several extra hours of work so I have to charge for it now. I did this one for nothing extra just to try my own suggestion. I had a whole list of shit to fix before I could work on the rude customers C1. The metal caps fell off all the knobs (extra time to fix them), most of the screw holes were stripped out, hardware missing, the whole unit looked like it was rode hard and put away wet. How's about you clean your shit before shipping and make a list for me telling me what condition it's in so I can utilize my time more efficiently???????????????????? I have to test it before and after to show our upgrades/mods do as expected. If it shows up broke dick, and I need to fix it first, then somethings got to give........ OK, enough said. If I get a free minute, I'll see if I can upload the drawing at the board house and see what Wun Hung Lo is going to charge me, maybe we can do a group grope Kyle since it's cheaper by the dozen.


1754054133739.png



I'm just about finished with a local C1 and the RCA plate looks fine and he can see the R and the L on the back so I didn't have to paint shit.

C1 customer a.jpg
 

WOPL Sniffer

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Screw it
I ended up setting the output gain to -6 db on the C-1 btw

I remove R404 and R405 and insert the Power Supply mod in there. I don't like the regulators burning up power they don't need to. The unregulated goes from the rectifiers to the ps module, then when the regulated voltage comes out of the module, it goes to the other side of where the resistor was. The resistors drop the power you are trying to get back to 12VDC with the mod. More heat, trying to keep the 9-11 volts at 12....... Just saying. The mod will keep it at 12 plus or minus about 10-15 mv..........
 
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