[jd128]

I fixed my original AM radio about 6 mos ago but hadn't tried it out yet till this weekend. I had ordered an old Corvair radio off eBay and stole the circuit board out of it to fix mine. I felt less guilty about tearing up a Corvair radio:devil: Anyhow I just got a 10ohm speaker for it this weekend; hooked everything up and it all worked great. However a couple of stations were really weak so I wanted to try a longer antenna to see if it would help. As I touched the antenna to remove it I heard a pop in the speaker.....then just static. I BLEW UP MY *DOG SAM* RADIO WITH STATIC ELECTRICITY!!!!!!!!
*FAMILY TRUCKSTER* THAT PISSES ME OFF! I waited 6mos and got to listen to it for three minutes.

I'm renaming my car. It was Peggy, cuz its like peg board to hang new parts on.

Now its name is CARMA...cuz I must be getting paid back for all the bad things I've done in the past. This car literally falls apart every time I walk by it.

 

[TMack63nova]

That really sucks!!

:ragtop:

 

[the tree man]

Misery loves company.Was waltzing real casual through the garage yesterday with a chainsaw in my mitt and slippery/snowy boots.Got tripped up and nosed the saw into the front fender to the tune of a 2 1/2" gash to the metal in my House of Colors Platinum Pearl groovy paint job.Almost had a heart attack right there.You'd think I massaged some old bags cat with my workboot for that kind of incident.Almost needs to be a thread to report crap like this and maybe we could exorcise the shrivelled monkey paw in the glove box!I feel better already.Thanks for starting the purge.

 

[seventynovaSS]

I don't think there is any way a little static damaged anything in the radio. There is an input transformer between the antenna lead and the first detector circuit. That will isolate the electronics from any static. Most likely you have and antenna lead problem or grounding problem.

If a little static could take out ta=hat radio, none of them would have lasted long at all. Just going down the road, the wind will put a little static charge on the antenna. Hell, I've zapped lots of computer mobos and cards accidentally, and after letting them set for a while, the static charge dissipated and everything worked just fine.

I would bet a milkshake you have something else going on with the radio.

 

[jimr38]

Misery loves company.Was waltzing real casual through the garage yesterday with a chainsaw in my mitt and slippery/snowy boots.Got tripped up and nosed the saw into the front fender to the tune of a 2 1/2" gash to the metal in my House of Colors Platinum Pearl groovy paint job.Almost had a heart attack right there.You'd think I massaged some old bags cat with my workboot for that kind of incident.Almost needs to be a thread to report crap like this and maybe we could exorcise the shrivelled monkey paw in the glove box!I feel better already.Thanks for starting the purge.

ohh man that's bad...if i did that i don't know how i would react but ill bet it wouldn't be good,

 

[jd128]

I don't think there is any way a little static damaged anything in the radio. There is an input transformer between the antenna lead and the first detector circuit. That will isolate the electronics from any static. Most likely you have and antenna lead problem or grounding problem.

If a little static could take out ta=hat radio, none of them would have lasted long at all. Just going down the road, the wind will put a little static charge on the antenna. Hell, I've zapped lots of computer mobos and cards accidentally, and after letting them set for a while, the static charge dissipated and everything worked just fine.

I would bet a milkshake you have something else going on with the radio.

You owe me a milkshake!

I studied up on radio repair and ordered the original repair manual for troubleshooting from eBay. There are six transistors that make up the radio. I built a simple signal generator using radio shack parts that I could use to inject a signal to the base of each transistor while it was turned on. I started at the X6 transistor closest to the speaker and worked my way back. When I got to X2 I lost the signal. I pulled a transistor off my other radio, slaved it in, and the radio WORKS again!!!!:yes: I guess the static electricity went through X1 and blew out X2. This probably wouldnt have happened if the transistor wasnt 46 years old. I'm glad I went this route...I could have bought another radio off eBay for $40 but now I know how to fix them myself. I spent $50 bucks on parts and the manual but the knowledge gained is better than a radio someone else fixed! I can keep this one going indefinetaly now. My next plan is to add the input for my ipod so I can have the original working AM radio with soomething besides Rush Limbaugh to listen to!

By the way, a static discharge can be thousands of volts. Not hard to blow out a transistor with that kinda voltage.

 

[patman]

Try here for the aux input mod: http://www.stevesnovasite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=185716

 

[jd128]

Try here for the aux input mod: http://www.stevesnovasite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=185716

DUDE...thanks, I was just looking for that and couldnt find it!

 

[seventynovaSS]

You owe me a milkshake!

I guess the static electricity went through X1 and blew out X2. This probably wouldnt have happened if the transistor wasnt 46 years old.

By the way, a static discharge can be thousands of volts. Not hard to blow out a transistor with that kinda voltage.

Maybe I do and maybe I don't.

Electricity takes the path of least resistance. Without the schematic in front of me, I can't see how static would go through X1 and take out X2.

It's not the voltage that does the damage, it's the current, and static electricity has very little current, usually a few microamps.

Glad you got it fixed though.