Do you need any experience to recap a monitor?

learpilot2

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I just got a pacman with a g07 monitor. It has maze curl and wave, and needs a cap kit. I have never done this before, and was wondering how hard it is. I did just recap an atari ARII audio pwr/audio board with no problem. I watched a youtube video on how to discharge the monitor. My local TV repair guy will do it for $60.00 labor, but I wanted to learn how to do it myself. I got 3 more games that need capping.
 
Well, a typical original G07 should have the flyback replaced, too, as well as the caps, otherwise you may end up with a dead flyback pretty soon.

But - if you can solder/desolder and know how to install caps with respect to polarity, then there isn't much to it.

If you replace the flyback, know that there are two screws holding it in place on the right side. A lot of people crack their chassis while trying to get it out because they don't know about those screws...
 
yeah, I suppose there are two ways of learning the cap kits.

First way: pick a easy chassis to practice on (like a K7000). Easy to get to caps, simplistic in design.

Second way: pick a harder chassis to practice on (like G07 or Sanyo). Idea being that if you can fix that one, the others will be cake.

Having other guys around who are learning is a great way to break your cap kit hymen. Three of us did a Sanyo EZ for our first. It took us a tedious 3 hours. Since then, I've gotten alot faster.
 
I actually consider the G07 the easiest to cap (maybe a tie with the 4900). It's the flyback which makes it harder (but not that much). I always hate getting that big cap out under the flyback bracket on the K7000...
 
Discharging the monitor is a piece of cake. All I do is hook 1 side of a jumper cable to the shaft of the screwdriver closest to the handle and hook the other side of the cable to the metal on the monitor frame. Then just slide the screwdriver under the anode cap and presto, youre done. Just be sure to keep your other hand in your pocket just to be safe that you wont ground yourself incase something should go wrong. If you let the monitor sit for a day or 2, you certainly wont hear the 'loud pop' and the 'bright flash.' Theres nothing to worry about as long as you can work up the kohones. I was terrified of discharging my first monitor. Now its childs play.
 
I've capped only 1 monitor and it was a Sanyo. That was back in May, and I only learned to solder 1 day prior by watching a few videos on youtube. I was successful with installing the kit, and it fixed the problem I had. The main skill you need is: to be able to take electronics apart and put them together correctly. The capping is the easy part. Don't sweat it, and you'll be fine.
 
Well, a typical original G07 should have the flyback replaced, too, as well as the caps, otherwise you may end up with a dead flyback pretty soon.

But - if you can solder/desolder and know how to install caps with respect to polarity, then there isn't much to it.

If you replace the flyback, know that there are two screws holding it in place on the right side. A lot of people crack their chassis while trying to get it out because they don't know about those screws...

I disagree. I've capped more G07s than I can remember over the last 12 years, I've never replaced a flyback that wasn't already dead, and I can only think of one instance of a flyback dying on me. Most of these monitors are either still in my collection after many years, or floating around in other local collectors' homes.

The flys are cheap enough and easy enough to replace so, if you feel like spending the extra $20 and 5 minutes, sure, there's no harm in replacing them... but to say that if you don't you'll inevitably end up with a dead fly is an exaggeration.
 
I just got a pacman with a g07 monitor. It has maze curl and wave, and needs a cap kit. I have never done this before, and was wondering how hard it is. I did just recap an atari ARII audio pwr/audio board with no problem. I watched a youtube video on how to discharge the monitor. My local TV repair guy will do it for $60.00 labor, but I wanted to learn how to do it myself. I got 3 more games that need capping.

It's pretty easy and if you've done an AR2, you shouldn't really have any problem with a monitor.
 
...I always hate getting that big cap out under the flyback bracket on the K7000...

I'm about to start my first cap kit with my K7602 monitor. I was wondering how I was going to get at that cap under the flyback...

Can it be done without removing the flyback, or do I have to remove it?
 
I'm about to start my first cap kit with my K7602 monitor. I was wondering how I was going to get at that cap under the flyback...

Can it be done without removing the flyback, or do I have to remove it?

I did it w/o removing the flyback. Getting the old one out was easy. Putting the new one in was tricky. If you are replacing the flyback anyways, then just pull it first. I held the flyback until last the 1st time, because I was intimidated by it. When I do my Paperboy monitor this weekend, that badboy is coming off immediately! It makes the board so much easier to handle.
 
Another tip I learned: I separate all my caps and stick them in a piece of styrofoam, and I mark the cap off my cap list or diagram as I go with a highlighter (so I can review if needed). Good Luck! an early Sanyo (in a box) was my first!
 
Another tip I learned: I separate all my caps and stick them in a piece of styrofoam, and I mark the cap off my cap list or diagram as I go with a highlighter (so I can review if needed). Good Luck! an early Sanyo (in a box) was my first!

yeah, very good idea. I tried that and never had styrofoam handy when I needed it. So I just layed em out on a blank peice of paper and wrote the values next to the caps.

Its starts getting scary when you've done enough of 'em that you start recognizing the values by sizes and stripes alone.
 
Another tip I learned: I separate all my caps and stick them in a piece of styrofoam, and I mark the cap off my cap list or diagram as I go with a highlighter (so I can review if needed). Good Luck! an early Sanyo (in a box) was my first!

Thanks for the tip. I saw that in a YouTube video too. I set everything up using that method and am working on the caps now. 5/17 done so far...
 
It gets easier too the more you do . The first one I did took me a couple hours , now I can do one in about 40 minutes . What helps is setting them out in order so you don't have to look for the next one .
 
My first cap kit was on a Sanyo 20 EZ.

My advice to you: Just go for it! Took me a few months to build up the courage to do my first cap kit. I still remember how much the adrenaline was pumping when I was discharging, removing, and disassembling, and even de-soldering the 20 odd years old caps from the chassis. This proved to be a 3-5 hour affair for me.

Once I finished, all was not right and my monitor had vertical collapse. After some bitching on the repair forums here and another 5 or so sessions of troubleshooting and testing I finally got it up and running. All in all a great learning experience and now I feel my next kit will be a breeze.

Definitely worth the time, lessons learned, effort, and frustration in my opinion. Save $60 and hop to it!
 
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