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IBM 5154 Problems & Electrolytic Caps Question

willmurray461

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Jun 11, 2018
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Boca Raton, FL
A long while ago I got an IBM 5154 in very good condition (it was not cheap though) to go with my IBM 5162. I was very pleased with the setup but one thing kept bothering me. The monitor had this green tint to it when you first turned it on, but it went away as you kept the machine running. I assumed this was the fault of old electrolytic capacitors, and since I wanted to try out my new desoldering gun, I decided to replace all of them. However, when I replaced all of them, it still had some problems. The green tint was gone. However, the display was a bit shaky and looked like it was vibrating ever so slightly. Sometimes it would pulse in and out, as if the display got slightly bigger and slightly smaller. Every so often I would hear popping noises, but no smoke or hissing so I wasn't sure if it was a capacitor bursting or not. Eventually there was a popping noise accompanied by the entire display turning solid green. At that point, I just set the monitor aside for later. Eventually, when I came back to it, it wouldn't even turn on. The power indicator light would come on, but there was no white raster and no video signal. It still makes the high pitched noises when syncing to the signal, but displays no picture. I'm now feeling like I replaced one of the capacitors with one of the wrong value. I made sure to replace all of the with identical replacements, except for two which were rated for 40v. I couldn't find ones for 40v so I replaced them with 50v ones. I checked all of the big turquoise resistors and none of them were shorted. I was wondering if anyone had a list (or could make one) of all of the values of the electrolytic caps of the 5154 so I could double check that I replaced all of the old ones correctly. If anyone has any insight as to what is happening, please feel free to share with me.
 
On which boards did you replace capacitors ? The power supply board is where the capacitors usually fail.
Its in a metal cage, runs hot, and the original capacitors temp rating was only at 85C. I have two 5154's
and have replaced all electrolytic capacitors in the power supplies. Have never needed to replace them in
any of the other boards.
 
I replaced the capacitors in the power supply, video board, and main board. I even replaced the capacitor on the neck board. When caps fail, they excrete electrolyte over the board, right? So if the capacitor failed, I should be able to see fluid below it, right? To your knowledge, are there any misleading board markings where I could have put in the capacitor backwards? I checked all of them to make sure they matched the board's markings.
 
Caps can fail without spilling their guts. Sometimes, it's just a dead short.

There have been instances where board markings are wrong, but I don't know about the 5154.
 
These pages below show the expected voltages on the power supply connectors.
I would start by checking these.

Have you removed or replaced those two oil filled capacitors across the AC line ?
.1 uf X2 C5/C6? I've had these caps blow on both monitors and they make a mess
and a lot of smoke. They wouldn't cause a problem like what you're seeing but
its definitely a good idea to get those out before they blow. The monitor will work
fine without those, so you can safely remove them and replace later with the
correct parts, need to be X2 rated.



Page11.jpg
PowerSupplySchematic1.jpg
PowerSupplySchematic2.jpg
 
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A long while ago I got an IBM 5154 in very good condition (it was not cheap though) to go with my IBM 5162. I was very pleased with the setup but one thing kept bothering me. The monitor had this green tint to it when you first turned it on, but it went away as you kept the machine running. I assumed this was the fault of old electrolytic capacitors, and since I wanted to try out my new desoldering gun, I decided to replace all of them. However, when I replaced all of them, it still had some problems. The green tint was gone. However, the display was a bit shaky and looked like it was vibrating ever so slightly. Sometimes it would pulse in and out, as if the display got slightly bigger and slightly smaller. Every so often I would hear popping noises, but no smoke or hissing so I wasn't sure if it was a capacitor bursting or not. Eventually there was a popping noise accompanied by the entire display turning solid green. At that point, I just set the monitor aside for later. Eventually, when I came back to it, it wouldn't even turn on. The power indicator light would come on, but there was no white raster and no video signal. It still makes the high pitched noises when syncing to the signal, but displays no picture. I'm now feeling like I replaced one of the capacitors with one of the wrong value. I made sure to replace all of the with identical replacements, except for two which were rated for 40v. I couldn't find ones for 40v so I replaced them with 50v ones. I checked all of the big turquoise resistors and none of them were shorted. I was wondering if anyone had a list (or could make one) of all of the values of the electrolytic caps of the 5154 so I could double check that I replaced all of the old ones correctly. If anyone has any insight as to what is happening, please feel free to share with me.

The story does sound like you cured the original fault with the re-capping and introduced a new fault. The type of fault sounds like one of the replaced capacitors was installed in reverse and failed later. It could have been a coincidence and the new fault is unrelated to the first one or the recapping. A capacitor of the wrong value would unlikely do it, most likely one got installed in reverse. So double check each one first and check on a meter for shorts and use an ESR meter to check each one in circuit.
 
I did replace the x2 caps, so that shouldn't be the problem. I kept all of the original caps, and none of them seem to be non polar. I'll go check to see if any of them were installed backwards again. If they were, would they be shorted, or would they read OL (open circuit)? I don't have an ESR meter, but I do have a multimeter.
 
Do you have an oscilloscope? It's a must-have when messing with monitors. Be careful with that thing, CRTs can be lethal if you accidentally touch the wrong thing. Stay away from the anode cap, the neck board, and the flyback when servicing a CRT device.
There was most likely nothing wrong with your monitor as far as the green tint goes. Sometimes when CRTs get old, the guns can take longer to warm up and start emitting. Sounds like in your case the green one was more active than the red and blue. Once the CRT warms up to normal operating temperature, it will balance out. If I remember correctly, IBM listed the warm-up time for the 5154 as either 20 or 30 minutes. That's how long it takes for the filament to warm up everything in the gun assembly to temperature and for all the electronics to balance out temperature wise. A full recap was most likely not necessarily.

I would start on the video board. Thoroughly inspect it with a magnifier under bright light to find any obvious physical damage, if any exists. If you have access to an oscilloscope, start at the video input and trace the video signal through the circuit. I would advise you use a clip-type lead, and only move the lead when the monitor is off to avoid shorting anything/getting shocked. While it could be the video board, the presence of a loud "pop" makes me lean more towards the HV board.

There are a few caps in the monitor which are specified to be low-ESR type caps. Did you replace those with low-ESR replacements? If not, the resistance of the cap could cause it to heat up during operation, causing voltage fluctuations and eventually component failure. This might explain the display jitter.

Good luck in your repair, and be safe!
 
One interesting thing about the 5154 monitor, the generation of the EHT (for the final anode voltage for the CRT) is independent from the horizontal scan system (it has to be because its multi-standard for CGA & EGA).

This means that the scan circuits can be working just fine and just the EHT for the CRT final anode can fail independently. In the process of doing that, the picture can change size (because in magnetic deflection, the amount of deflection the beam experiences is inversely proportional to the square root of the EHT voltage). So for example, if the EHT was dropping due to a fault, the picture would expand in size, or say if the EHT increased , the picture (in both width & height) decreases in size. The changing size picture before it failed and the popping sounds , suggests an EHT failure. The all green screen suggests a problem in the video amplifiers or the circuits that drive the cathodes and grids of the CRT.
 
I have two spare 5154 power supplies, took a picture of one and marked the positive (red + sign) end of the caps.
The polarity appears to agree with the half moon type markings on the board....the white side being the negative.
Some of the caps do also have a + sign on the board which is correct.

5154-PS-Cap-Polarity.jpg

If the power supply caps polarity are all correct, I would still check those power supply voltages from the page I posted earlier.
Maybe you have a bad (new) cap.
 
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Just curious, which capacitors need to be low ESR? I didn't make sure to replace any of the caps with low ESR ones, which could explain failures.
 
Just curious, which capacitors need to be low ESR? I didn't make sure to replace any of the caps with low ESR ones, which could explain failures.

None that I am aware of in the power supply. I used generic Xicon 105C temp rated capacitors that I purchased from partsexpress.com.
 
None that I am aware of in the power supply. I used generic Xicon 105C temp rated capacitors that I purchased from partsexpress.com.

I seem to remember the one on the neck board being low-esr, along with one or two other caps on the HV board.
 
I still have the original caps, so I might put back the neck board one as well as the other low esr ones, if you can remember which ones they are.
 
Looking at the schematic for the 5154, there is something interesting about it, compared to the CRT gun controls on the 5153.

In the 5154, the input R,G & B signals, after they pass through the input buffers, are direct coupled by the amplifier chain all the way to the cathodes of the CRT. There is no AC coupling. blanking signals etc are common to the 3 channels, as are the CRT grid voltages as they are common too in the CRT.

In summary, there are no unique electrolytic capacitors in that system for each of the R, G and B amplifier channels. This means that, the drift in the green level you saw cannot possibly have been due to an electrolytic capacitor issue.

It was instead one of two things:

Either there was a DC offset or drift in the green channel amplifier that altered the green CRT cathode voltage, or it was a CRT issue with the emission on the R and B guns being slow to warm up. The only way to tell would be to monitor the CRT's cathode voltages and see if the green channel (or R & B together) had a drift after the set was turned on. If not, it must be the CRT.

When the set is working again, if the green drift issue reappears, this is something that could be easily checked.
 
I just looked at the old caps I took out and remembered that some of the 4.7uf 50v caps have a black casing, whereas others have a blue casing. Is it possible that these black ones are the low ESR caps mentioned? Otherwise, is there any way to look at a capacitor and tell if it is low ESR?
IMG_0939.jpg
 
I just opened it up again, unplugged the video input board and plugged it back in and now the sets back to working (sort of)! The weird pulsing/vibrating issue is still there. How would I check the EHT? Also, what would cause EHT failure?
 
I just opened it up again, unplugged the video input board and plugged it back in and now the sets back to working (sort of)! The weird pulsing/vibrating issue is still there. How would I check the EHT? Also, what would cause EHT failure?

An EHT probe will measure , they need to be at least 30kV capable, and the probe tip is slipped under the EHT cap on the CRT,can be tricky if you haven't done it before, however, there is mostly no need to measure it, IF there is a visible scanning raster of the correct size AND a focused CRT beam, both these things imply that the EHT is normal and a final check is if the raster doesn't change size much with alterations in brightness and contrast (CRT beam current) that implies that the internal resistance of the EHT generator is low enough to be normal.

If there is nothing visible on the CRT face, the CRT's heater is running, and the CRT's grid and cathode voltages are in the low range of 0 to 10V (grid more negative than cathode) there should be a beam visible, but if say the grid is 60V or more negative the CRT beam current will be cut off (even with normal EHT). So if that is checked, still no picture, then it probably is the EHT generator.

Often, when a set turns off & on you can hear an electrostatic "crackles" when the EHT comes and goes, that is another clue.

The EHT generator in the set is practically identical to the H scan output stage (but it does not power the H coils) . So it has an output transistor, damper diode, transformer and EHT rectifiers and is driven from a similar drive source as the H scan stages. If your main power supply voltage peaked up, that could take out the output transistor, so that is the very first thing to check (after checking these circuits have their correct power supply voltage).

A pulsing effect of some kind (not exactly sure what you mean by that), suggests that some protection circuitry is shutting down your main power supply at intervals, this happens if one of the stages it powers draws too much current, which of course happens if the HOT is shorted out, or the similar transistor in the EHT generator is shorted out.
 
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