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Tips for Recapping Naim HiCap

Al_G

Member
I received the replacement caps today. Thanks for all the help on my other thread.

The HiCap has one burnt tantalum cap. It's towards the front of the case and away from the big caps. Any and all tips welcome. Two specific questions.

1) How to determine the polarity of the burnt tantalum cap?

2) Is this the proper way to access the circuit board? Remove the two hex nuts from the bottom of the case and then gently bend up the black U bracket to expose the caps' solder joints on the attached circuit board. This will bend some of the attached wires. Hoping these wires don't also need to be desoldered and then resoldered.
 
1) There should be a little + sign on the tantalum capacitor although it’s very small or a long vertical line that indicates the positive. If you can’t see it, have a look at another capacitor at same position and function. On most of Naim gears, the ground is usually the largest/widest path on their boards and they streamline all in same direction.

2) The procedure you describe is the way I do it taking care not to over bend the wires.

These tantalum capacitors must be all replaced on a regular basis (10-15 years) as they short when they fail causing damage........
 
De-solder the wires and remove the heatsink and pcb assembly from the sledge, there is no good way to work on components in situ.

All the tants fit the same way round, so if you can see the polarity of any one, fit the rest so they face the same way. Be careful that replacement devices have polarity marked the same.

EDIT: muchtoofast later shows there is a way to avoid de-soldering the regulator pcb, but I would still prefer to remove it to work on.
 
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Thank you, muchtoofast. In your picture, you have turned the module upside down while the wires are still connected to the rest of the HiCap. This obviously makes the soldering job easier. Definitely wanted to check here before trying it. I appreciate the help.

And thanks to everyone else who took time to help.
 
Ha! Ok, good work @muchtoofast you can flip it over if you take the smoothing caps out, I withdraw my previous incorrect statement. Personally I would still just remove the regulator pcb to work on ...
 
Nice concise & helpful set of photos and descriptions by everyone - thanks all because such things will always help everyone who searches for similar in future :)
 
I'm happy to accept payments any way... ;)

(twas a nice bit of work there though, if I can get a Hicap to be that neat again I'd be more than happy)
 
We were able to flip up the board without desoldering and without removing the big caps. My buddy heated up the solder on the tants, while I pulled them out.
 
I find that when removing old caps it is best to cut the cap body from the legs and then de-solder each remaining leg stump one at a time. Use a clamp to hold the PBC if possible, hold the stump of the leg with pliers and then de-solder. Finish with a solder-sucker to clean out the hole in the PCB. This method reduces the time the PCB tracks are being heated and reduces the risk of damaging them.

You should always mark the positive leg on the PCB to ensure the replacement caps are fitted with correct polarity (unless bi-polar caps are used).
 


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