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Just finished Sanyo Plus 130 receiver restoration

rossm

rossm

AK Subscriber
Subscriber
Earlier this year I found a Sanyo Plus 130 receiver at my local ewaste drop off site. Amazing find considering they only made about 1500 of them, that puts its rarity in the same league as Marantz 2500. Very cool with the tuner displaying both digital and analog. LED power meters and unique Freon filled heat sinks. Even with its rough condition I had no choice, this receiver must live again. The first shocker was the dial glass had been busted.
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This receiver had a rough life, power transistors burned, resistors smoked and charred craters in the pcb
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Also pretty dirty inside
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This receiver was not designed with service in mind. The power supplies are located on the same pc board as the amps. To get to the power amp boards the power transistors which are attached to the big heat sinks must be disconnected from the driver board via 8 molex connectors. Then the Receiver has to be upside down to unscrew the main power caps. Once that’s done the amp boards can be flipped 180 degrees and re connect the power transistors and caps for troubleshooting, rinse and repeat to work on the other amp board. The power transistors molex connectors can be attached several different ways that will produce smoke. Even though it looks like the left and right power transistors are interchangeable they aren’t. Care must be taken in case someone else has been inside. I managed to find a very bad copy of the service manual and uploaded it to hifiengine , so I was able to trace out and Map the proper orientation of the molex connectors.
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I managed to replace all electrolytic caps , burned resistors and transistors and get her singing again. I Also replaced the busted glass, was fortunate there was no lettering or holes in the original design.
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Everything works great with the exception of AM radio, the rear antenna was missing. Never Listen to AM any longer so no big deal. FM works great!
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In the rack now connected to a set of KEF 104.2’s which are constant 4 ohm load. Sounds good and hardly breaking a sweat.
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Makes the mighty STA-2100D look small!
I also have a Sanyo Plus 75 I would like to restore but unfortunately it uses the unobtainable transistor power packs, so working on discrete transistor replacement.
 
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Welcome to the club buddy.I think there are a couple other guys on here that have one.The most underrated Monster receiver around. A bunch of guys on here have told me "Receivers can't handle a 4 ohm load" :blah::blah::blah:. Ha I said. The Plus series are pretty awesome. Just wish I could get my hands on a Plus 200.:bowdown:
 
Nice work. That's a rare bird you've got there. Legend has it that there was actually a Plus 200, but AFAIK, it's vaporware.
 
Just curious, does it actually use freon/ R12?
What happens in the event of a leak?
R 12 is expensive, can it be retrofit for another refrigerant?
 
Freon filled, yup. As they don't have a compressor or any rubber lines, it's unlikely they will leak unless being subject to mechanical damage.
 
Sanyo can, yo;.

Amazing, and I damn well want one. Congrats on the amazing work, that thing was pretty bad.
 
Lavane said:
Very nice! I didn't know Sanyo even built anything like that.
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Also check out the JCX-2900K. An impressive beast in it's own right. I've had two of 'em, kinda wish I might have kept one.
Photo lifted from the interwebz.

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just dave said:
Nope there were 4 made.
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Practically vaporware. A production run of 4 is pretty much prototypes or custom items.
Interestingly, I was looking through my service docs, and found an original Plus 130 service manual. Not sure where it came from, but I've had it for years.
 
rossm said:
I also have a Sanyo Plus 75 I would like to restore but unfortunately it uses the unobtainable transistor power packs, so working on discrete transistor replacement.
Click to expand...
Check with RCS16. The discrete amp board for the SX-780 has been used in large wattage FISHER (80W-100W) with little to no mods. Conceivably they may work in the Plus 75. As it uses STK-0070 it should be a minimally invasive change, as the 70 and 50 both Pure Comp, Single channel Darlingtons with no emitter resistor. Same design. just tweak the bias and center.

http://audiokarma.org/forums/index.php?threads/stk-0050-replacement-for-sx-780-and-others.721181/
 

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tarior said:
Practically vaporware. A production run of 4 is pretty much prototypes or custom items.
Interestingly, I was looking through my service docs, and found an original Plus 130 service manual. Not sure where it came from, but I've had it for years.
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Service Manual, cool ! I sure could have used that !
My copy is barely readable, any chance you’d scan yours and post it to hifiengine?
 
I'll have to find someone I trust (who will give it back) to send it to and have them do it. I was going to steer you to Stereomanuals.com (no affiliation) for a paper manual, but it appears that he doesn't have one.
 
larryderouin said:
Check with RCS16. The discrete amp board for the SX-780 has been used in large wattage FISHER (80W-100W) with little to no mods. Conceivably they may work in the Plus 75. As it uses STK-0070 it should be a minimally invasive change, as the 70 and 50 both Pure Comp, Single channel Darlingtons with no emitter resistor. Same design. just tweak the bias and center.

http://audiokarma.org/forums/index.php?threads/stk-0050-replacement-for-sx-780-and-others.721181/
Click to expand...

thanks for the link ! I have already attempted this project, I was able to build the modules and make them work on the bench. The problem was getting everything to fit into the plus 75 chassis. Even after grinding the heat sinks to the bare minimum size there wasn’t enough space. I May re-attempt once the Marantz 2500 is finished.
 
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