Hey, so I repalced the caps, and rubber wire on the power supply and chassis; upon hooking it up and trying the radio the high voltages measured fine except the rectifier tube HV semmed to be measuring 1000v! (high?) The only problem that was encountered at the time was that the filaments of the 27's where not lighting up but the ps was putting out 2.8 volts on the filatment tap. It was during this troubleshooting the pop of death was heard and the smoke was let out. Upon further examination both visually and by semll at least one filter cap had gone south, the others test fine for capacitance but I have yet tested them on a true capacitance tester. What in the world happened? All of the obvious has been looked at like polarity, shorts, ect and no probem has been found thus far. Tha caps where 4 mfd 450v units which I believe to be fine. The radio was hooked up using the ballst dropping resistor and the supply has always been loaded by the chassis during testing, what made it go kaboom? any ideas? And what about the lack of filament voltage for the 27's

27s take 2.5 volts, so 2.8 volts is just fine. Some voltage drop will occur through the wiring. You might need as high as 3.0 volts at the PS. Be sure that your high voltage winding is connected properly. If you accidently connected one of the ends to B- in place of the center tap, you'd have much higher voltage out of the B circuit.

I think I laughed my ass off at your "pop of death." I am imagining that -loss of all bodily function- feeling. I wish I could locate the DUCO cap that exploded in my ear like a 10-pack of fire crackers. It looks so awesome--like pages in a book. I am worried that I may have thrown it away. It would make a great picture.

T.

Thanks Thomas, problem still not found as of yet but still looking....
You like that cap story here is another one. About a year ago I purchased a small bakelite Silvertone AA5 for a nothing price; upon taking it to the counter the lady BEGGED me not to plug it in. After some reassurance that I will restore it before plugging it in she "let" me buy it. When pulling it apart at home the remains of the .047 line cap fell out, it did not only go pop it EXPLODED! I wonder how long before she climbed down from the celing after that happened.

Anyway if anyone has any more experince or ideas on this frustrating power supply please bring them forth!

Thanks!

Well.....Check each of the three high voltage legs with the AC setting of your voltmeter. Be sure to use the 1000 volt setting. Be sure that the two wires that measure about 350 volts (I don't remember the exact voltage, but it's something like that) to the third wire are connected to the rectifier plates. The third wire should be connected to B- as indicated in the power supply schematic. Unless you are somehow accidently wiring the electrolytics in a voltage doubler configuration, there will be no way that 1000 volts can then be generated.

......Although a short in the transformer primary could raise the secondary voltage.

T.

Also, if you disconnected all of the wires of the power transformer, make sure that you didn't do other things.......like accidently connect the wrong winding to the AC supply. If you accidently confused one of the filament windings for the AC winding, you'd get extreme voltages at your high voltage winding, and you might blow a fuse, though you're even more likely to burn out the power transformer.

If you say that your filament voltages were normal, then reversed windings probably isn't the case, though it is possible. Ohm out the windings of the transformer, and test each winding for proper voltage with the transformer disconnected from all parts of the radio.

T/.