help with DG Nova 3

From: William Donzelli <william_at_ans.net>
Date: Sun Sep 28 16:58:55 1997

> While *I* have never seen it happen, friends have told me that the
> electrolytic capacitors in the power supply can cause problems if they have
> been sitting for long periods of time. Some of them have put a variac on
> the unit and brought the voltage up slowly over a period of ???? but I seem
> to recall it was at least hours. Someone else on the list might have more
> info there.

Yes, please remove the supplies from the load (the boards, etc.), and
replace it with a suitable BIG power resistor to simulate a proper load
(also known as a dummy load). If you do not have a variable transformer
(Variac or otherwise), go ahead and turn the thing on - the Nova is not
that ancient, so the caps probably have not degraded much. If you do have
a transformer, ramp up the voltage from 0 over ten minutes or so. It
really only needs it once.

For truely ancient capacitors (no use for 15-20 years), it is probably
best to ramp it up over a half hour or so thru a 240 v light bulb (current
limitter). Most of use, however, never run into computer stuff that needs
this extreme treatment - some radio stuff, however, does.

William Donzelli
william_at_ans.net
Received on Sun Sep 28 1997 - 16:58:55 BST