Replacing capacitors

[Frotz]

Every 2600 I've seen on the inside has its capacitors mounted rather haphazardly; typically with lots of space between the body of the part and the board. Usually one or more is cracked. Is there any advantage to desoldering these and replacing them with more compact modern caps?

[Ian Primus]

Every 2600 I've seen on the inside has its capacitors mounted rather haphazardly; typically with lots of space between the body of the part and the board. Usually one or more is cracked. Is there any advantage to desoldering these and replacing them with more compact modern caps?

 

If you're referring to the liberal sprinkling of ceramic capacitors - then no. It's pointless to replace them unless they are faulty/smashed. They'e very reliable, and in this application, they're only used to filter noise from the circuits. Value is not particularly important. Mounting ceramics above the board is standard practice, if you were to mash them all the way down to the board, every one of them would be cracked. The cracks are undesireable because they can allow moisture from the air to contaminate the inside of the cap... but once again, in this application, it doesn't really matter.

 

-Ian