No- you don't HAVE to recap every radio... Blaupunkt Florenz

This is a perfect example of a set made towards the end of the tube era where by then chemistry and construction methods had improved enough where many capacitors were much more durable and reliable. In this episode I show you how to check capacitors BEFORE deciding to replace.

[blitzroehre]

Germany here: I have done hundreds of these sets over the last decades, and these caps are clearly the tropicalized versions, hence the resin coating over those ERO caps. This was done on basically all export sets by all German manufacturers From past experience I can confidently say that these tropicalized caps are just as crappy as their ordinary counterparts, moisture has seeped in and degraded the dielectric to become acidic for sure. They may be sorta ok for now, but in a few weeks of use they will fail one by one. I have had this happen so often now that if I restore a radio for someone I just do all those which have voltage over 25v on them during operation, no sense in skimping and risking a sure boomerang set come back on the bench a second time. Those caps on the PC board can be changed from the top by cutting leads close to the cap body and then doing a quick solder onto the new cap leads, maybe holding the old lead with a pair of needle-nosed pliers.
Cheers and good luck from Deutschland 🙂

[pauljames]

The ECL86 is a triode/pentode output tube thats doing the 2nd channel. Saba used those in their stereo sets too.

[billdepalma]

Beautiful radio nice presentation. Grundig radios have the nice deep bass.

[Earcandy]

That original right and left input was for the output of the multiplex decoder.

[michaelpetersonjr]

You're right in that this Blaupunkt radio is from the early 1960's. You're also right that German radios are much more difficult to work on than a typical AA5 radio. Most likely during the Cold War, American servicemen would buy these when they were stationed in Germany, and return here to the US with them.

[scififan]

The only part I would have replaced would be the selenium rectifier. This is a real stereo radio as the ecl86 is a combo triode and output pentode for one channel and a single ended el84 for the other channel. It's nice that they used really nice parts as you are correct this looks like a nightmare to work on. Such a nice looking radio though.

[hestheMaster]

Blaupunkt Florenz model 21353 from 1961. Probably one of the best AM/FM/SW tube radios you can find from that era of
tube radios.

[pascalzenker]

If a capacitor in a German radio has a clear plastic sealing it doesn’t mean it’s automatically a polystyrene cap. Many of them are just normal paper ones like Wima Durolit or Eroid. The ones in the metal tube are paper ones

[js]

I would take a second look at those metal encased capacitors like the one you took apart, especially the ones that get high voltage. I've recapped quite a lot of Blaupunkt tube radio's and those metal enclosed capacitors usually were leaky or bad. I would also check the electrolytics. I think the plastic ferrite antenna knob slides from the shaft and it is made up from two plastic pieces that grip together and are secured with the ring you removed.

[richroj]

very good Mr. Radio, it sounds very nice and you cleaned up the cabinet well👍

[spidyrk]

I never could see the dial indicator. You've had Philco's from the '30's that had more bass.

[Mikexception]

It is not bass charming radio but instead specialy when you switched to AM it was very right sounding with human voice and it is promising to music too. In FM the band is extended by tweeters and not so pure. Tube radios often had switch otf tone beteween speach and music. with bass less controlled and more prevailing. . It has decent lookig speakers I would expect that good position for it ahould be with wall behind or in corner.

[PapiDoesIt]

I had a Blaupunkt system in my H1 Hummer. It sounded decent, but wasn't anything stellar. I lost my awe of Blaupunkt when I realized it translates to Blue Dot and that reminds me of Kmart.

[maxs.]

Everything that says ERO100 on it has got to go. Those are paper caps and theres several in this radio. Only caps that are more reliably bad are frako browns and blues

Edit: i'd also take another look at the low voltage electrolytics. Those fail way more often than the HV ones if were talking german manufacturers. That will likely also be why you have no bass, the bypass caps on the ecl86 and the el84 are shot

[nallo]

I’m sorry but I prefer good ol’ American made radios. They’re simple, easy to fix a usually reliable, with few exceptions, of course

[RobertKross-twsi]

Capacitors degrade with age, but more so with the heat from the tubes. That is why you do not see that much cap degredation on 1.5 volt tube radios. If you are not using it all the time, don't replace all the caps.