Often electronics manufactures try to help large electrolytic capacitors stay put, by gluing or potting them in place. From your the goop in your photo it does not look like silicon or hot melt, it might be an epoxy though. Is it around all of the bigger caps?

Does it seem come from one source or equally distributed around each large cap?

Is it possible the caps leaked? I know next to nothing about electronics, but I know caps can leak. No idea, but is this what that looks like? Andy

Yes caps can leak, but that looks like they all leaked, thats pretty darn hard to do. Possible yes, likely no.

Maybe apply some Sherlock Holmes here? If that's what it looks like, no matter how unlikely, must be the case? FWIW, Andy

I have seen brown expoxy that looks like that once or twice.

I guess another question is the stuff hard like expoxy or goey or powdery?

Man you guys are smart.

Yeah, it's hard like epoxy. At first I thought it looked like a leak the way it "runs" over the board. But now I see it's more like when you apply a continuous bead of caulk... or glue.

Problem, or lack of one solved. Thanks!

Now I just gotta figure out why the two vu's don't light up. I suppose it's possible both bulbs blew from something. I'll have to check that.

Thanks!

No problem. Like you said The VU's are just bulbs, should be able to change em out. So I am curious how terrible sounding is the unit? The build quality in the pic, looks like typical A.R.T., Awful Rubish Typically.

What brand and values are those larger caps?

That's hilarious that they are doing the same thing Behr&%$# does to get that "warm tube glow" by putting some yellowish-orange LEDs behind the tube! Behr&%$# probably copied that idea! Don't worry about the VUs...just make sure that tube is glowing! :lol:

Kapt.Krunch

I put the lid back on already. The caps are 85 degree ones though, I did notice that... mainly because I'm looking at a John Hardy M1 and he uses 105's.

Digging further, I decided it's just too much trouble to get to the meters. There's some thin metal bars soldered in that are in the way. So I'd have to remove them, put them back, pray I didn't screw anything up.

Nah, they work they just don't light up. I think I'll put it on craigslist as is.

How does it sound? I'm a voiceover guy, I had paired it with a Rode NT1000 and a DBX 166 compressor with okay results. Not great but okay. I put my MKH416 through it and it just sounds terrible. And that's my goto mic now, so the tps II never gets used.

Dito on the orange LED Glow, gimic gimic gimic....

I once saw a sound card PCI based, meant to go in the pc, witha 12AX7on it, thats just wrong on so many levels.

Is it so wrong? Just reading about it made me spit coffee up my nose. That's gotta be worth something.

Your photos are not as clear as I would like for detective work, but it looks like the manufacturer used some kind of glop to hold the capacitors in place. If the capacitors leaked, you would see corrosion on the p.c. board because the electrolyte is very corrosive.

John Hardy
The John Hardy Co.
http://www.johnhardyco.com

John,

Thanks for the reply. The pictures aren't as clear as I had hoped. There is no corrosion. And there is no bulging or popped x's.

After looking at it further, it's at the base of all the capacitors so I belive you are right.

Funnily enough, I'm selling this unit along with some other gear and upgrading to your M1 to pair with my 416.

This may be a rookie thing to say, but it's just so awesome that you posted.

Thanks again.

And we must not forget the capacitor debacle that occurred in the early 1990s when I believe it was Siemens-Neve or was that SSL that had a really terrible problem with an underrated electrolytic capacitor/capacitors that leaked all over the circuit boards, virtually destroying numerous $250,000 consoles that all had to be repaired/replaced and retrofitted with all brand-new electrolytic capacitors. Remember that one guys??

I'm glad I never owned one of those!
Ms. Remy Ann David
who owns the old stuff

It must have been a Siemens-Neve. If it was an SSL, there would have been an assistant to do the leaking for the caps! I'll bet it's meters had blown bulbs, too.

And we must not forget the capacitor debacle that occurred in the early 1990s when I believe it was Siemens-Neve or was that SSL

It was AMS/Neve, I would literally hear a cap blow in the middle of a mix!!
I was using a VRP, luckily there was a twin in the other room, and the
modules were easily swapped!!

It was however funny when I was given 3 days off so the Neve tech could
replace the caps in 144 modules (72 modules per board!!!)

Alan Sides bought those turkeys!!!!
Made a 96 input from the two:

http://www.oceanwaystudios.com/studiob.htm

Yup! And I thought it was tough replacing all of the electrolytic capacitors in my 2 old vintage, 36 input Neve desks? 20 per channel to be exact. That's nothing compared to one of those Siemens "VRx" series consoles!

Thanks for the memory refresh TVPostSound !
Ms. Remy Ann David

It was great back then, I had 72 mic pres to choose from, all the same!!!!

U87 into the Neve, insert an LA2A, print to 456 tape.
Sounded amazing, and to this day, I cant recreate it on my Protools!!!!

And I thought you would end your post with "Thanks for the mammaries" :roll:

"B" cups are no problem here. But thanks. Actually glad they aren't larger.

Big head, small cup size
Ms. Remy Ann David