What components age in stored equipment?

[walpurgis]

If a piece of equipment is stored, say for ten years or so. Be it an amp or CD player, speakers, deck or cartridge, etc. What should be looked at before using said item again?

[Spectral Morn]

If a piece of equipment is stored, say for ten years or so. Be it an amp or CD player, speakers, deck or cartridge, etc. What should be looked at before using said item again?

Good question.

Its not just the electronics, caps, resisters, drive belts but the surface too. An example.

I was moving some items around the other day, and noticed spotting on the top edge of a tuner, brushed aluminium, I assume, with a black finish and there were darker spots on the finish that I could not clean off. Its been stored carefully not exposed to damp and yet it looks like spots of rain left to dry in the air and the finish is marked. Anyone any ideas re what did this. Could mold be responsible, or dust or.... Any thoughts.

[Audio Al]

I would think you need a variac and bring the voltage up slowly then if nothing goes pop all should be OK

Just my thoughts ( But who am I ) :)

Anything with belts , they would need replacing

[walpurgis]

Ageing insulation and old lubricants were among things I also thought of.

I'm not necessarily talking about items members may have stored. Quite often a purchased item may have been unused for many years. Maybe after the death of the owner for instance. Advice as to what to look at could be handy.

[struth]

modern stuff should be ok after a few years, but vintage, yes, a variac is of use to bring it up in stages

[Arkless Electronics]

On the electronics front it's mainly electrolytic caps that need "reforming" ie the insulating layer of aluminium oxide has to be partially regenerated after many years of non use. Hence building up voltage slowly (a couple of hours or so seems to do the trick) using a variac.
If something has not been used for 10 years or more I would use a variac as above....Especially if the gear is valved. It does seem that "modern" caps in SS gear are nowhere near as bothered about needing reforming as the high voltage ones in 50's and 60's gear so for SS gear that can probably be put more at 20 years... If you want to chance it...

On vintage valved equipment (I'm talking 50's and 60's here) many of the capacitors used at the time were of extremely dubious quality (foil and paper types) and will certainly need replacing. These are things such as Hunts "Mouldseal", Hunts wax covered caps, Dubilier 700 series and in fact any of those plastic cased Dubilier ones (also often seen under the RS brand name) and also paper in oil types such as the TCC "Metalpak Visconal" ones. Do not even switch it on and try it as they WILL be faulty and could cause damage, mainly to output valves and transformers in power amps. Even "NOS" ones will be duff!

It is pretty much unheard of to see any of these crap capacitors in anything built after the early seventies, the dubious Dubiliers being the ones last phased out. It is pretty much a given that you will not see any of these dodgy caps other than the Dubiliers on anything made after around '68 ish but I have seen Dubiliers of the dodgy type in TV sets from as late as around '74!

[struth]

saw a big cap blow out the front of a tv cabinet and land in a old dear's lap. :stalks: she shit a brick. it was her first ctv and only in house for a few hrs. Needless to say she went back to her b&w one.
poor soul

[Yomanze]

Capacitors, capacitors, and capacitors...

OK, other things that may degrade: carbon comp resistors and anything involving switches and contacts. Also, depending on the circuit, some might be 'component eaters', running over-stressed transistors, tubes etc. that eventually go pop.

[willbewill]

Good question.

I was moving some items around the other day, and noticed spotting on the top edge of a tuner, brushed aluminium, I assume, with a black finish and there were darker spots on the finish that I could not clean off. Its been stored carefully not exposed to damp and yet it looks like spots of rain left to dry in the air and the finish is marked. Anyone any ideas re what did this. Could mold be responsible, or dust or.... Any thoughts.

Spider poo? Can be a real nuisance.

[Minstrel SE]

Well yes some people act as if they have done me a favour by boxing it up for 10 years. I dont expect anything electrical to be in working condition after long term storage. I did have a Marantz tuner that was boxed new for six years and it was fine when switched on...then again it was a £24 bargain punt I was very happy with

Caps dry out and Ive seen things that wont power on until plugged in for a while.

Ive been quite lucky with things lasting but I choose well and dont buy a lot of cheaper products with too much to go wrong. Ive only had one capacitor go stinky pop on me after 28 years of hard use in a Sharp amplifier that was passed round the family.

Ive seen dried grease on tracking rails and back up memory capacitors fail in planned obsolescence products. I dont thing a few years before a capacitor leaks over the board is acceptable but the mini cd drives are usually also stuffed by then anyway. Belts go on cheaper cassette decks but Ive only seen that once after 30 years of part storage. Two cd drives failed in those mini systems but I didnt buy them new. Those all in one mini things have a definate shelf life as they are not cost effective to repair.

Some amps and tuners have lasted well over 30 years. I know capacitors deteriorate so I have a soldering iron handy.

Ive still got a Ferguson CRT in one corner and its still going. I think dad repaired it once but I didnt expect it to last another twenty years after that.

I wish some things would fail...I need the room :)