[time-nuts] Difference between Oncore models

Mark Sims holrum at hotmail.com
Wed Mar 16 22:40:15 EDT 2016


When an old electronic gizmo starts failing across multiple units,  the culprit is almost always failing electrolytic capacitors.  Check your GPS board for electrolytic caps and replace them.  There could be some other component that is susceptible to an age-related failure mode,  but caps are the goto item to replace... they are cheap and replacements are trivial to find.  
Tantalum caps tend to be more reliable than standard electrolytics,  but also have age-related issues.  Their standard failure mode is a dead short and release of stinky blue smoke,  but they can also fail in more subtle ways.
I highly recommend getting one of those "Mega328 tester" (search on Ebay, without the quotes) component tester devices.   They are dirt cheap and work very well.  Connect to any device with up to three leads,  press the button, and it tells you what the device is,  the pinouts, and various device parameters.  They are not perfect,  but are really hard to beat. For caps they give capacitance, leakage current, ESR, etc.  I prefer the units with a graphical display and a socketed Mega328 processor.  Open-source and upgradable firmware is available.

-----------------------
> The older 6ch Oncore receivers receivers are beginning to die 
apparently. 		 	   		  


More information about the time-nuts mailing list