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rebuilding a mep003 voltage regulator?

peyton

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houston, tx
Anybody done it? It's a pretty simple circuit and the parts wouldn't cost much so it wouldn't be too difficult *if* the encapsulating compound is fairly easy to remove. Otherwise it might be easier to breadboard it. Does anyone know a good solvent for the compound that won't eat the board as well? Thanks

Peyton
 

peyton

Member
69
10
8
Location
houston, tx
Re: RE: rebuilding a mep003 voltage regulator?

CCATLETT1984 said:
potting by its nature is going to be hard to remove.
Yeah. I was hoping someone might know of a solvent. I think it's polyurethane and it's a fairly thin film. Breadboarding will probably be much easier but won't look quite right. Still, I need to get it going.

Peyton
 

doghead

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RE: Re: RE: rebuilding a mep003 voltage regulator?

Are the parts availible anywhere? I am considering buying a few mep003's in the near future.
 

peyton

Member
69
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Location
houston, tx
Re: RE: Re: RE: rebuilding a mep003 voltage regulator?

doghead said:
Are the parts availible anywhere? I am considering buying a few mep003's in the near future.
You might get lucky on eBay but my *limited* experience indicates that certain engine hard parts ...injection pump, pump solenoid, lines and injectors ... are difficult and/or expensive to find. Probably everything in the AC control box as well. So be sure the gensets are complete!

A lot of the other stuff can be replaced with functional equivalents ... fuel pumps, fuel filter/adapter, fuel lines, gauges, etc.

Some circuit boards (e.g. voltage regulator) are fairly simple and can be repaired ... hence my original question.

IMHO, they are wonderful gensets *but* are really loud. Good luck

Peyton
 

JasonS

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I have a coworker who is depotting a civvy regulator. I'll ask him what he is using; he claims that it is softening up the potting. There are also commercial chemicals designed for this.
 

doghead

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I just did a google search for"remove potting circuit " and found a few interesting things. Heat or chemicals seem to be the most common ways to remove potting. Maybe you could use your oven?
 

peyton

Member
69
10
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Location
houston, tx
I just did a google search for"remove potting circuit " and found a few interesting things. Heat or chemicals seem to be the most common ways to remove potting. Maybe you could use your oven?
Thanks for reminding me of the power of google. I did a search on "removing conformal coating" and found a wealth of info including a formula for a polyurethane or epoxy coating remover. I had been thinking of using a heat gun but if the ingredients for the formula are easily obtainable I'll give that a try first. Thanks again

Peyton
 

Ray70

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Agreed. I've messed around with these VR's in the past and successfully replaced the transistors and the POT's but other than that you might be better off going with the newer technology the SS member's VR's provide, rather than trying to dig too deep into repairing the original, failure prone design.
 
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