Electronics quiz
29.01.2008 21:19
First, congratulations to the Cyberpipe computer museum team for the successful repair of the Macintosh SE. Sorry guys, this was just too good not to be posted ;)
Martin writes (this is a rough translation of the relevant part of the text): The cause of the malfunction turned out to be a blown 3.9μF bipolar electrolytic capacitor in the horizontal deflection circuit. The problem however was that you can't buy a 3.9μF capacitor, because it's not a popular value and shops don't have it in stock. So we had to replace it with a substitute - three capacitors connected in series. After the fix the computer worked, but the picture was stretched horizontally. Replacement capacitors held for a couple of minutes, then one of them blew up again.
You can't say for sure, what caused the replacement to blow, however you can say why the picture was stretched from the photo of the replacement capacitor circuit below (the original capacitor is on the left). Bonus points if you can prove it mathematically:
