How I briefly lost my Acom 600s (and my breath)

A few weeks ago out of the blue my Acom 600s amplifier decided it won't turn on. I turned it on and it will beep a melody (can't remember which one now) and immediately turned itself of. In the rare occasions it did turn on briefly it sent a message "5v too low". I won't lie, it scared the #%@$ out of me. Being in the Dominican Republic any factory trip for any equipment is expensive, long and a risk.

I must confess that my electronic abilities are limited so I did what I normally do, look for expert opinions on reflectors and I wrote to Val, LZ1VB, who's always ready to help Acom users (and helped me before). His recommendation was to check on the capacitors in the power supply unit and he even sent me a couple of pictures for reference.

That I could do. I opened the amp (man there are a lot of screws!) and got to the power supply and then to the capacitors. Val was right, there were dried out (both) and had to be replaced. After I got the replacements capacitors I was between a rock and a hard place: I knew what to do but did not feel confortable doing it by myself.

So I asked fellow ham radio HI8DL, David for help, who replaced the capacitors in just a couple of minutes and of course Val was correct. That was the issue.

So thanks to Val (LZ1VB) and David (HI8DL) I'm now enjoying the beauty of my Acom 600s again.

A couple of pictures you'll see below.

73, Santiago

PS: Yes, as soon as this Covid 19 social distance is over I will get myself some soldering/desoldering skills. It's never too late to learn.