Devileyes
Member
So I bought this very nice external condition SX-3800 from a seller on an auction site. In the pics, in the auction, the receiver looked like new. The seller stated that it powered up, but had no output.
Since I plan on learning about this stuff, I decided to buy it...with the idea maybe someday I could fix it. I own an original SX-3700 that I bought new in the early 80’s which is still in beautiful working condition, I wanted the 3800 back then but couldn’t afford it.
So anyway the 3800 shows up and it is in extremely nice condition. I hooked it up to my Dim Bulb tester and it came on and then clicked. The bulb lit semi-bright at first then went dim. I then just tried all the buttons and dials with no input, everything seem to be working ok, except for a few bulbs out on the front... A speaker, FM and Aux lights out. I then shut her down and opened the case just to look at the inside. A little dusty but otherwise pretty clean and looks to be all original. The only thing that looked off to me was the 2 larger filter caps tops looked bulged...but I looked at some other pics online and think maybe that they just have plastic caps on top of them?
So I hooked up a some speakers, CD player, FM
antenna and tried it out. I got output! The volume knob and balance knob were scratchy, but everything I tried seemed to work. So I shut it down, took it apart and cleaned all pots and switches with deoxit and lubed. It’s all back together now and everything seems to work. I have a very slight balance difference, the right channel is a bit louder than the left. Not by much, it shows on the flouroscan meters as well.
Maybe more deoxit for the balance knob?
Here are some pics of it.
I’m wondering if there are some upgrades I can do to it to keep it from burning up like so many posts I see about the SX-3800 on here.
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Since I plan on learning about this stuff, I decided to buy it...with the idea maybe someday I could fix it. I own an original SX-3700 that I bought new in the early 80’s which is still in beautiful working condition, I wanted the 3800 back then but couldn’t afford it.
So anyway the 3800 shows up and it is in extremely nice condition. I hooked it up to my Dim Bulb tester and it came on and then clicked. The bulb lit semi-bright at first then went dim. I then just tried all the buttons and dials with no input, everything seem to be working ok, except for a few bulbs out on the front... A speaker, FM and Aux lights out. I then shut her down and opened the case just to look at the inside. A little dusty but otherwise pretty clean and looks to be all original. The only thing that looked off to me was the 2 larger filter caps tops looked bulged...but I looked at some other pics online and think maybe that they just have plastic caps on top of them?
So I hooked up a some speakers, CD player, FM
antenna and tried it out. I got output! The volume knob and balance knob were scratchy, but everything I tried seemed to work. So I shut it down, took it apart and cleaned all pots and switches with deoxit and lubed. It’s all back together now and everything seems to work. I have a very slight balance difference, the right channel is a bit louder than the left. Not by much, it shows on the flouroscan meters as well.
Maybe more deoxit for the balance knob?
Here are some pics of it.
I’m wondering if there are some upgrades I can do to it to keep it from burning up like so many posts I see about the SX-3800 on here.
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