PmWiki | Hardware / PowerSupply

As a first action in restoring my PDP8 to a functioning state again (it had been standing around in our basement since 20 years!) I started by checking if the power supply was still working. As it is well known the main trouble with old power supplies are the exploding electolytic condensers. I connected it to a Variac, which I got from my former lab, in order to raise the voltage slowly and check on the various voltages. We took the power supply outside - just in case - and you see the power supply in the next two pictures:

PDP8 Power supply outer side

PDP8 Power supply Omnibus side

Nothing happened luckily and I have been using the PDP8 for several weeks - mainly to recover the Dectapes and disks. As you see on the picture I had the H724A 220V schematics handy, so that I could find the appropriate testing points.