29 June 2013

Project "Mitchell Model 1265 Portable Suitcase Record Player, Selenium Rectifier Replacement"

It has been a long time since I made any new posts because I am no longer that free anymore as I am now working full time.

But today I finally got around to replacing the 'dangerous' selenium rectifier that is present in the Mitchell Model 1265 turntable that I restored some time ago. The rectifier can apparently fail catastrophically and emit poisonous smoke during use! I thank the person who left the comment here on this blog highlighting that fact to me.

I am not good with hardware and circuits, so I had no clue on what to replace the rectifier with. A good consultation with my more technically inclined brother revealed that I only required a modern day IN4007 diode to replace it: a very simple and quick fix!


This is the modern day diode versus the selenium rectifier (the component with the multiple gray square plates).



It only took me about 5 minutes but took my brother a good half an hour of circuit tracing and Googling!


After everything was done, I plugged in the player and it was still working like before...and now it is slightly more future proof and will hopefully last for a very very long time!


Link to previous post on the restoration of this player: http://projectrepair.blogspot.sg/2012/05/project-mitchell-model-1265-portable.html