Solution #5
posted on Jan 05, 2007
Rank: Apprentice
Rating: 88%, 4 votes
Fan? If there is a cooling fan in the SV454 then they forgot to install them in the ones I've worked on. These use special 2sc5242's and 2sa1962's for the final outputs (transistors) they are manufactured by Toshiba, special because they were a special or unique house brand type of transistor made for the SV454. The specs for these really seem to to push the envelope for the case style/size. Most of similar types of transistors are rated about 33% to almost 50% but not quite, lower then these. What I speculate in the SV454 is a condition where a final output transistor is working its little guts out. Things like caps drying up shouldn't be near an issue with this model because it's not all that old yet. Who knows? It could have been a cost cutting move, it could have been an experiment with a unique transistor designed for a specific circuit and amp, or something I'm not even thinking in terms of. Electronics in practice is a theory based science so when something is designed it should work, as we all know after a number years it either holds up or it has problems many of us term as "overheating" or just "blowing up". In theory the application should work, hold up, and maintain within tolerance. In practice, years of service and/or use, the theory is blown away. I point to the final output transistors, but it could be a number of many things like diodes, caps, or ? that cause final outputs like these, that are running on the fringe, to actually overheat or blow. The finals are the most frequent component that require replacement in this model, specifically the main amp or front channel if you prefer. Some people may think that replacing all the caps, whichever those may be, helps because I see this suggestion almost all the time and it's getting way to common, but the truth is I see more heat related stress in the prestage area of the circuits then anywhere. So in that respect where a thermal condition could cause these very small transistors to overheat and oversaturate due to this condition, excess current could very well effect the finals which are running on the edge to begin with. With that said then it would make more sense to replace the prestage amps/transistors then almost anything else. In my opinion, I don't believe that DC, DC offset, DC leakage is related to the common failure issue and the trouble is a thermal condition effecting the prestages that ultimately fries the finals. The electrolytic caps are coupling filters bewteen the stages, designed to prevent DC from being passed on and amplified to the next stage. The AC caps are filters in the power supply to prevent AC from interfering with the DC supply voltages to things like the rail voltage or b+ and neither of these seems to be the culprit. It never hurts to replace inexpensive electrolytic caps, but I don't think it's necessary in solving the real issue with this model mainly because these are not that old and secondly because I've rarely ever seen one bad if at all. If you really wanted to service this right, I'd replace the prestage transistors and monitor the zener diodes for thermal responses and not worry a whole lot about any caps unless you had specific reasons like DC offset, higher or imbalanced levels would be a sure sign.