by Record-changer »
Sun Oct 29, 2006 3:46 am
I encountered a jukebox where the muting device quit working when the diodes in the muting board were replaced with exact replacements with the same 1N number.
It turned out that the exact replacements were not exactly exact replacements. During the 30 years between when the jukebox was made and when the replacement was made, the design of the part was changed.
The part was a high voltage diode, designed for use in power supplies over 600 volts. Since technology hadn't at the time hadn't yet produced a diode capable of such voltages, the diode actually contained two diodes in series. The jukebox manufacturer used this undocumented fact: The higher forward voltage of this diode was used to make the muting circuit work.
But as semiconductor doping techniques improved, manufacturers started making the part with a single diode instead of two in series. Thus, replacing the part with the newer part with the same part number results in failure of the circuit to operate as it should.