For those A600, A1200 and CD32 owners or other models if you have found the desire or need to recap. Let's find out who you get to replace the capacitors if of course you have bothered. Perhaps shout out any people or organisations who you have used who offer the service to all.

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Amiga A1200, 3.1 ROMs, Blizzard 1230 MKIV 64MB & FPU, 4GB DoM SSD, Workbench 3.1

@A1200

I have used tborro from AmiBay and I am super happy with the end result
And the fact that he lives just down the street from me is also good.

Cheers
Juzz

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AmigaOne Owner since 2002.
The first person to get a Linux installer running on the AmigaOne :-

@A1200

I did it myself. It was a... uh... beautiful job.

@A1200

I have a list of a few people who do repairs and recapping on my website, though there are plenty of other people too. I can add to the list of course if people have recommendations.

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RobTheNerd.com | InstallerGen | SMBMounter | Atoms-X

Why do one need to make recapping? I have several Amigas and none has had the need for recapping.

@Niolator

Because capacitors (specifically aluminium electrolytic capacitors) degrade and fail over time. Typically this takes decades and gives subtle symptoms such as increased ripple in the power supply lines and reduced audio quality. As the capacitors degrade, pressure builds up in their casings and eventually they start bulging or even rupturing at the top.

Now, this isn't normally a problem until it happens, and even then it's just a matter of replacing the failed parts, but A600s, A1200s, A4000s and CD32s use SMT capacitors instead of the older through-hole types used on older models. There are two problems with this:

First off, the SMT capacitors were relatively new in the early '90s, and the technology wasn't as mature and stable as it was for the older capacitors, meaning they had significantly shorter life expectancy than the through-hole counterparts. Coupled with Commodore using the cheapest parts they could get their hands on and the fact that storage without use accelerates the failure of these capacitors, we're seeing them failing en masse at the moment.

Second off, these SMT types do not have the pressure relief mechanism of the through hole capacitors which bulge and vent upwards. Instead, when the pressure gets high enough, they leak their electrolyte downwards, directly onto the PCB beneath them. This electrolyte is corrosive, and given time, can eat its way through the fine traces hidden beneath the capacitor's base. This can also spread to nearby traces, and eventually causes far more severe symptoms, such as failure to boot, loss of video or audio, etc.

Recapping is mostly a preventative measure - replacing the capacitors before they have a chance to cause this damage. But all too often there is substantial damage already - I've had to practically rebuild the entire video output area of an A600's board more than once due to the capacitors beside the IDE port leaking. And similarly for the audio area.

If you only have through hole capacitors in your Amigas, it's generally going to be fine, and even if you do get a capacitor fail, it likely won't cause much damage. But for the Amigas I listed with SMT capacitors, it's almost guaranteed that they'll leak and cause serious damage sooner or later.

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RobTheNerd.com | InstallerGen | SMBMounter | Atoms-X

@Daedalus

I had Geir from Retroservice in Norway for recapping my A1200 and 600, in addition to RF modulator port removal and fixing the A600 IDE pins.

http://www.retroservice.no/nb/?v=c2f3f489a005

maccaps did a fantastic job on my A4000 and power supply maccaps webpage

Acill over at amiga.org does some fine work as well Acill's webpage

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c64-2sids, A1000, A1200T-060@50(finally working!),A4000-CSMKIII
! My Master Miggies- Amiga 1000 & AmigaOne X1000 !
mancave-ramblings
X1000 I BELIEVE

I'm living in Switzerland

Is there a ReCap-Service in Switzerland or somewhere close? Germany?

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Sometimes we give people a lot of credit just because they're writing nice sentences even if it isn't adding up to much.

@Daedalus

Thanks for the answer. That cleared out a few things.

@Niolator

I gotta say, I have had some Amigas come my way recently in excellent cosmetic condition, working fine. When I looked inside the solder was a dull grey/green colour and so the damage was already starting.

The longer left, the worst the corrosion is. I have noticed that 5-10 years ago recapping was hardly being mentioned and rightly so, I never encountered it. Now, almost without exception, machines with SMD caps are in desperate need of attention, even if the instability hasn't begun yet. You got to think, how much damage will be done before the issue manifests itself in instability issues?

I know why people don't want to do it - whether doing it yourself or sending it to someone it is a pain in the bum but if you don't your machine will eventually succumb to the issue. Why do I know for certain? Because any motherboard revision of A1200/A600 I have seen has come to this so I don't think there is a "good" batch that doesn't have this problem.

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Amiga A1200, 3.1 ROMs, Blizzard 1230 MKIV 64MB & FPU, 4GB DoM SSD, Workbench 3.1

@A1200

It was some time ago I opened my Amiga Classics. I will have to check how they are doing some time soon, I guess.