[hpsdr] Smoke from Penelope

[Gerd Loch]

Hi Vern,

ist his the capacitor C4 left of T2?
If yes, this is a tantal capacitor. Tantal capacitors are a weak point in
circuits and I avoid them as far as possible. I have assembled a ceramic
capacitor on my Penelopes for C4.
You will have to replace this capacitor and I recommend to no more powering
this board. You risk to burn traces on the board.

73, Gerd
DJ8AY


Message: 12
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 2009 12:51:09 -0700 (PDT)
From: Vern Kollas <spoonman1227 at yahoo.com>
To: hpsdr at lists.openhpsdr.org
Subject: [hpsdr] Penelope -- Letting the smoke out...
Message-ID: <716445.96693.qm at web54205.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

Greetings all..

So... I decided it was time to get both my Mercury and Penelope updated with
the latest firmwares....? Mercury went fine as always.? However, when I
powered up Penelope, she started smoking...? :-(

I have powered her up a few times before without any issues, but since I am
still waiting on Alex/Pennywhistle, I haven't had her installed in Pandora.?
After a little investigation, C4? (located right up next to T2) is the
culprit.? Any ideas what might be shorting out this cap??? If I plug it back
in, it just smokes some more.... No other parts seem to be hot or anything
like that.? Otherwise, nothing else has changed since I last had it powered
on.

Any ideas of what I should check first??? 

Thanks in advance and 73!!

Vern -- KC8YOH


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