Electrolytics in Colorado....go bang

[Dale Putnam]

Howdy,The tale of my first time with Heathkit, one that I built, the first one ever for me.And what a day of excitement. Here it was, all ready to go, all very carefully assembled, and soldered, well, like it was supposed to, ok, not pretty, but the globs hung on the wires and stayed. And, the big day had finally gotten here. My elmer was on vacation, not to be found, he who had answered all the questions, every last one of them and done it so very well too, that now it was a bit of an empty feeling to find the friendly voice missing from the other end of the line. That line being 14 miles long, didn't matter in the least, I had used my DX-40 that I had gotten for Christmas not the long ago, what, two years already?, that little DX-40 had gotten me all over the Great Plains, and even into California. But the problem was no Elmer, and a bit of concern about powering up the brand new beige-brown Heathkit. Looking at the situation from this side of things... one might say a bit of lacking confidence, but even that could be explained away, considering. So.. after spending most of the morning, and a Saturday morning too, trying to find an Elmer. Wait, and with a burst of energy, off to the phone I went, was he home? The local tv shop had closed, but there was a fellow, lived way over there, about 15 mile away, that had said that he might be bringing it back one day. Shoot, he'd know if there were anything wrong, before I plugged it in. Sure he would. "Hello, are you going to be home this afternoon? Doing anything real important? Well, yes, I have a problem with a new kit, I put together, can you look it over? Please?"........ "You can! Alright! Now? Sure, be right there, well, soon, ok? Bye!" Whew, that was settled, now to get the rig, into the car, and scoot. On the drive over, I reviewed all the time spent, fun time too, exploring the book, and rereading the steps, one at a time, to insure nothing missed. Reached across the seat and caressed the case lightly, made it reassuring, that this really was going to work. My very own, two meter rig. Out of the car, up the steps, the seemingly lengthy greetings, yes, everyone is doing well, they're fine, and yes, we are going to take a trip to New York City, next week, I hope to take my new two meter rig with us too. Gotta make it work first though. Upstairs? To your hamshack? Sure lets go. Never ever miss a chance to see someone elses hamshack, especially if he is going to help check a new rig. We settled in, in front of the bench, full of test equipment. Discussion, and descriptions, traceing the circuit... all took longer than expected. But all went well. So.. the big moment had arrived, the plug slipped into the variac, and the huge knob turned to about 110vac, then the moment of truth, "click"..... .dare I breath?SSSSSSSSSBANGBANGSMOKE!.. OH NO... Heart is now about ankle level, and beating 2 mayb 3 hundred beats a minute... "That was a loud as my 12 ga !" I shouted, my ears ringing so loud I could hardly hear me. "What? Oh, yes it is off!" Seems my hand never left the knob when I turned it on.. but I did see the filaments light... so they were ok... what in the world was that?In the bottom of the rig, were two large pigtailed electrolytic cylinders, they had bumps now, with a little more smoke leaking out in a telltale wisp... one bump on each, looked like it was rubber covered. What did someone plan for this? How'd they know to put popoff valves ( pop off valves I knew about, from the propane powered tractor) ... Huh? They didn't plan this? well what happened? .......... oh......... oh... sinking feeling in tummy.... it had taken almost a month for the ordered radio to show up, it would take another 4 weeks for the replacement caps to appear... shucks, we'd be in New York and Back by then. ... but wait what? You have some too?You do? Ten minutes later, the rig was warming up nicely... and a pair of xtals had been found too. WOW! I spent at least the next days calling CQ .. on my new Heathkit Twoer. Did anyone answer? Well, no... I was 180 miles from Denver, and the nearest two meter station had to be at least there. But it was alive.. my little radio actually worked... and I had built it with my own two hands... and a bit of help from a friend... who, after I had traveled on through High School, College, and came back home, became my boss, as I worked in the tv shop, to help ends meet. The Twoer traveled quite a ways with me, but never sounded any sweeter than that time that a voice that faded before ID, talking about something that I didn't understand, slipped out of the speaker. But never to be forgotten.. is the sound and smell.. of a pair of 40 ufd 350 volt electolytics... wired into the power supply, ..... reversed.May we all never have to experience that again.  thanks for reading.. and for the bandwidth, .. past WA0LRJ, and WN0LRJ which is when this happened, about 45 yr ago.--...   ...--Dale - WC7S in Wy 
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