Re: [ARSCLIST] Repairing (or purchasing) a Uher

[steven c <stevenc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

see end...
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Richard L. Hess" <arclists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> At 12:24 AM 6/18/2006, steven c wrote:
> >----- Original Message -----
> >From: "Richard L. Hess" <arclists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> > > I wonder what it will be like in 20-30 years? We'll have to have a
> > > personal machine shop!
> > >
> >No...you'll have to have a personal microchip manufactory (should
> >such a thing exist!). Back in my youth, you went looking for
> >second-hand tubes (45's were scarce...X-99's like hens' teeth!)
> >because resistors and capacitors were still readily available.
> 
> The good news is that National is coming out with a very interesting 
> replacement for the NE5532 but it appears to be only available in 
> surface-mount (SMD), so we'll need SMD-Dual-InLine adapters.
> 
> The real thing will be when the embedded microprocessors are no 
> longer repairable. At that point, the Ampex List folks will be proven 
> correct in keeping their AG-350s and AG-440s running since they are 
> made of all relatively common parts that are still easily 
> replaceable. We just found that Ohmite still sells the big power 
> resistors used to reduce torque to the reel motors as one went open 
> on someone's Ampex.
> 
> BUT, the real trick will be to bring everything on the tape machine 
> out to a USB port so that all the transport logic/tension logic etc 
> can be recreated on a generic Windows box thus saving us from having 
> to maintain obsolete embedded microprocessors.
> 
> >Atwater-Kent used to seal their power-supply components in about a
> >half-ton of asphalt, either on the assumption they would never need
> >replacement or else what you ACTUALLY needed was a new (Atwater-Kent)
> >receiving set!
> 
> Burwen "patented" his noise-reduction filtering in the DNF-1201 
> consumer device (and perhaps the pro devices as well) by grinding off 
> the part numbers and using semi-obscure chips like quad opamps.
> 
> 
> >The idea of actually FIXING something seems to have died two or
> >three decades ago...no wonder we're running out of landfill space!
> 
> And even the module-level, board-swapping level of repair is so 
> costly that it often makes economic sense to replace the entire unit 
> rather than an assembly that's 50-60% the cost of a replacement unit.
> 
> Of course, we could look at it that we're helping raise the level of 
> Michigan's land so it will less prone to flooding...
> 
> >Remember when drugstores and supermarkets all had tube testers,
> >and you took all the tubes out of your TV (hoping you'd remember
> >how to put them back in their sockets?) and "tested" them and
> >bought replacements for the ones where the needle didn't swing
> >into the green "Good" area of the meter?!
> 
> Yup, I do!
> 
Well, we will see the "next big challenge" in not too many years! Our
automobiles are now extensively "computerized"...usually using proprietary
chips and microcircuitry...and at some point auto owners will get their
machines towed into repair shops, only to be told "Well, the problem is
in this little black box here...except you can no longer get a replacement
for that, it's out of production. What you now have is a two-ton, fifteen-
foot-long paperweight!"

In fact (and I think this may be happening nowadays?) "hot-rodders"
will be able to reprogram their machine's digitalia and override
factory settings...same as, in my day, they used to install special
cams and such...

Steven C. Barr