Technics SA-500 Receiver - Repairs (Ep. 173)

A nice minty receiver from 1978 in for a full service

[@CharlesDowiot-qv7pp]

I got a stereo from 1978 Sanyo IN BEAUTIFUL CONDITION LIKE BRAND NEW THEY WERE BUILT TO LAST ❤😊

[@chrishamel5951]

Wow, I have a SA-500 that needs some love. This was fun to watch. Care to do another?

[@zx8401ztv]

For a 1978 receiver it's in a lovely condition :-D . I was impressed how well the nova polish worked on the relay. Just like a new relay.

[@TrevorsBench]

I suspect any polish would have the same result. One just needs to get the oxide layer off

[@steveoszman8746]

I have done the back to back several times with technics gear, works for me.

[@jubemarsh2202]

I fixed one of these. It had a blown driver & output stage in one channel. Replaced the drivers, emitter resistors, outputs, and dialed in the bias. 🤙

[@TrevorsBench]

I found it easy to work on

[@johnbravo7542]

Nice job Trevor,really liked the replacement of those LED's

[@SergZak2023]

Great job as always, Trevor. Good to see you trying an alternative to 2000 grit sand paper. The Novus seemed to work great. Thanks for recording and sharing...I realize it's ALOT of extra work. Thanks for taking us along for the ride!

[@TrevorsBench]

Thanks for your continued support Serg

[@Stuartrusty]

As mentioned elsewhere here, non polarised electrolytics are quite freely available both in axial and radial. Commonly found in loudspeaker passive crossover networks. Great tip on polishing the relay contacts, a little more work than fine grit sand paper, but worth the effort. Nice job with the LED power meter. I have found one or two old radio/cassette units with similar very dim LEDs. They were 2mm flat top style similar to the ones you had. I have found an ebay supplier who supplies short length 2mm flat top LEDs from a manufacturer called Kingbright. They fit just great and I think they were used in some Japanese audio kit from the 70s and 80s as original equipment. Red 2mm short flat top part No. L-1034ID, yellow short flat top 2mm part No. L1034YD, green short flat top 2mm L-1034G. Also available from similar suppliers are triangular, arrow, square, rectangular and arrow all from Kingbright, some of these I have found in other 70s and 80s made Japanese audio kit for home and car.

[@TrevorsBench]

Thanks for the info. It's hard to find the old LED case styles that were used

[@scrappy7571]

Digikey shows plenty of 220uf UES (the cool green color) bipolar caps in stock. Several voltage ratings too.

[@TrevorsBench]

Good, I probably won't be stocking these as they are oddball caps that would just go stale in my parts drawer

[@Poppinwheeeeellllllieeeeez]

You're the boss Trev. Glad to see you try polish. Auto sol or mothers polish is great. Flush with IPA. I have been using it on Dual turntables for years. Only solution that makes contacts like new. It literally menlts the black oxide. For caps I just take a black marker and mark the caps towards the front of the receiver so I can never forget. I also snap a few pics. No need to pop a cap unless you are not being careful. I still do them one at a time and solder them in sections. Everyone has a different style. I prefer incandescent lamps in units that had them originally. Plague of cheesy LEDs will pass eventually.

[@paulb4661]

Well made, diffused warm white led replacements with integrated, on-board smt rectifiers are indistinguishable from incadescent bulbs to the eye with the advantage of running cool and low consumption. Once surrounding plastic elements have had enough of heat and became yellow tinted brittle, such replacements are worth their weight in gold.

[@TrevorsBench]

I like the warm white LEDs because of the cooler running and power savings they have. Sometimes they are too bright but that can be easily fixed with a current limiting resistor

[@Theoobovril]

Much enjoyed, Trevor...

[@jstro-hobbytech]

Tis the a note sir. Nice receiver

[@alexismethenitis]

Thanks for another great video! Great work.

[@chrisdavis3550]

Right On!! TY got 1 on the bench

[@gordthor5351]

That's a good point you made about the fiberboard bottom cover. In my opinion it's a must to have a metal case to shield todays plethora of high frequency interference. It might not have been the case when vintage gear was manufactured, but it certainly is now. I think it is a good idea to line any wooden covers with metal shielding on vintage gear. If there are vent holes in the wooden covers then perforated metal shielding will still work as long as the holes or slots are smaller than the prevalent high frequency noise you want to block out.

[@timcorner2821]

Actually, Pioneer mentioned putting a metal bottom cover on my SX-780 to shield unwanted frequencies, in their 1978 commercial, It was Burgess Meridith who narrated the ad....lol

[@mikecooley3361]

I have the exact same SA-500, works pretty well but as far as I know, it's never been serviced. How much would one expect to spend on service?

[@glennford4483]

I had one of these many years ago, not quite the quality of pioneer sansui or marantz but had a very good sound. The original volume pot was of the stepped variety.

[@cjsocool3307]

I have one in mint condition given to me how do I take the face plate off?

[@bradleycarroll1300]

Thanks Trev Dawg. I have a weird situation w/ my 500: the tuner cable/ slide STOPS at 97Fm and will not go any further lower on the dial. Not seeing anything stopping it in the slide zone or the pulley assembly. It makes a little thump sound near the numbered dial when it hits 97FM. Supe weird. Any ideas?

[@user-rr7sr2kl9m]

😮

[@DomingoVasquez-ue3iq]

Hi! I just got one of these. Can you tell me how much would it be for you to do a job like this on it?

[@LeafyGooner]

Another great video. I’d love to know how many hours you put into each repair.

[@TrevorsBench]

I don't keep track, sorry

[@scottjamable]

I inherited this same receiver and had an intermittent left channel fail. I haven't replaced any caps yet but did take out my dual volume pot and clean and lube it as I thought it was suspect, it was not. I see no burnt resistors or oozing caps. All of my pots and switches work great. I have cleaned every rca jack and swapped around speaker jacks etc. left meter and channel totally gone now. I really don't want to recap the entire thing but I may. Do you have any ideas of what to check. Could the relay or protection circuit cause this? Thanks

[@scottjamable]

I ohmed out left and right speaker jacks with the receiver off and got the same reading on both sides as well.

[@TrevorsBench]

Lots of links in the audio chain between the inputs and speaker outputs. You will need to troubleshoot and follow the audio signal to see where it stops. I can tell you there's many points along the chain that may be broken. Start by inspecting the PCB for cracked solders, especially in heat zones and around the power transistors. Have a good look at where the output transistors plug onto the main board. The speaker protect relay wouldn't cut off all audio, it would be intermittent but you never know. Cycle the speaker switches to see if it comes back at all. Hope this helps

[@jag53922]

I’d like to sell mine. Do you recommend replacing the bulbs with LED’s ? Cool or warm? My shop says buyers of vintage equipment want things just like they came out of the box, but you can hardly read the dial. Many thanks for any comments.

[@scott4015]

The volume pot on this should be 250K not 500K, the original stepped pot on mine is 250K.

[@TrevorsBench]

Good to know, thanks

[@johnsenchak1428]

OZZY !!!!!!

[@johnsenchak1428]

440 HZ IS A MAJOR

[@stevefoster2700]

It's just A, specifically A4 (fourth C scale from the left on an 88 key piano). You would need to add a C# to make it major.

[@johnsenchak1428]

CHANGE ALL THE CAPACITORS !!!!

[@TrevorsBench]

I thought I did

[@johnsenchak1428]

@@TrevorsBench That's the mantra of all the electronic KZbinrs " change all the capacitors because of low ESR"

[@johnsenchak1428]

STOP SENDING LONG VIDEOS REPORTED FOR ABUSE

[@kelleyhagan960]

If you don't like it don't watch it. Where are your repair videos ? Stop being a troll.

[@robertdavis5714]

I screwed-up big time replacing the indicator light and next thing I know the string is #%&@#$. So watching your work I think I see what I was doing wrong and hopefully can do this myself and save myself $100, quoted repair price.