To those recapping retro systems or having recapped systems
 

To those recapping retro systems or having recapped systems


Please put a sticker on a visible part of the board indicating that it was recapped and when. You may or may not want to include your nick and/or contact info.



For example:
Recapped
Oct. 2018
TT


In 10, 20. or 30 years no-one will remember if or when this was done or when it should be done again. To those with boards that have already been recapped please sticker them accordingly.

Excellent advice... heard it mentioned before but still not done it myself, thanks for the reminder.

John

I put a sticker at the backside of the board with date etc..

I however HAVE got complaints about "putting sticker on board" so it is removeable..

Edit your post chucky instead of making a back to back post, especially when it's within an hour of your previous post.

Both your posts had the same time stamp and it's preferable for you to simply edit your post rather than create another one.

Yeah, I have mixed feelings about this. It's a very good idea to have it recorded on the board, but at the same time I know a lot of people don't like having extra stickers on their boards. I've done it in the past when I've recapped boards, but don't currently.

And for one board that I have for repair at the moment, the owner has actually asked me to remove the stickers from the previous repairs and recaps. So it's impossible to please everyone...

Is it not possible to use paper and a glue dissolvable in IPA - surely there's a way to not leave sticker marks. I mean there are sections on the board that look designed exactly for that kind of information! :lol

You can get special labels made from a plastic substrate with semi-permanent memory glue that work very well, even after a year they'll come off cleanly and take all their glue with them, but that involves getting a roll specially printed. I was just using paper labels, and always putting them somewhere that they could easily be removed and the area cleaned with IPA as you say. But I guess people don't want that hassle of removing the labels, or worry about damaging something, perhaps justifiably if they go at it with acetone or something...

I actually have a can of stuff specifically for removing labels that's even better at the job than IPA (and smells of oranges, so bonus!)

The stickers I am using now are easy to remove and leaves no marks. they are plastic.

Great idea. I'd probably just write the date very neatly on the back of the PCB, but I've not had to recap any of my machines at this stage.

I put them on all the boards I do as well.

You know, there has to be a marker pen that fully dissolves in something like IPA - that'd be ideal for this. Nothing permanent at all.

Is it impossible to tell if a board has been recapped by looking at the caps themselves ?
Shouldn't new caps be of some model that doesn't leak, and that can be identified by looking at it ?

They'll all leak eventually I think, and so its a matter of how many times has it been re-capped, or more importantly is it due another recap.

Great idea on my A1200 someone put a recapped sticker on the RF shield casing which I thought was a good area. Who cares about that part of the board?

Not immediately, Commodore used several brands and most SMD capacitors look the same anyway.

There are polymer caps which should essentially last forever without leaking, but of course even they may eventually fail otherwise.

In any case it may be difficult to tell for sure whether the caps have been changed purely based on the markings; a better way is to closely examine the solder joints. Even very well done manual soldering does tend to look different from the factory process.

Yeah good point, and brings up another reason for dating the recap somewhere on the board - resale.

If you buy an Amiga, wouldn't you like to know if and when its been recapped?

I've been using this labelling system for a few years now, as I know I'll never remember!