Long time no post. Quite a busy months. Let’s start with a simple one. All photos were taken with my Nokia Lumia 1020. I was too lazy to use my DSLR for this purpose ;-).

During some ‘cleaning house’ session at the weekend – few weeks ago, I just realized that I have an old Marantz AV Amplifier, PM400AVK. I still remembered that this unit was quite problematic (bulging capacitors, some problem on the driver, etc). Was too lazy to repair, so this unit was stored under the table for long time. Before throwing them away, I thought it would be good to salvage some parts from the unit.

The unit actually has a stacked PCBs. On picture below, I have removed the first PCB on the top part. Fairly simple and classic design. Transformer, heatsink, and signal PCB.

Below is the first PCB on the top which I have removed. It has some IC to convert the digital signal (I think I saw PCM56 DAC around this PCB). Some relay, trimpots, and a lot of ‘brown bag’ capacitor (could be tantalum or mica). Some comb-like IC, etc. Most of the capacitors are Nippon Chemicon which is very common on Japanese product.

The output transistor are vintage A1265 and C3182. I can see interesting stuff: Noble resistor near the final output transistor 😉

Transformer is one of the most wanted stuff when salvaging such high quality old Japanese product. This one is no exception.

At nearly 4 Kg of weight, this transformer surely a serious stuff. Can’t miss it!

After cleaning. The transformer is still on good working condition. Copper shield band makes it looks even better! Color coded wire will simplify the connection. I try to find service manual for this model, but it seems nothing. So I just need to plug the transformer to the main, and measure the secondary. I suspect it should be around 25-32V.

Beside transformer, heatsink also one of the most interesting parts to be salvaged. And yes, after cleaning, the heatsink looks like new. It’s a good aluminum heatsink (not cheap stuff like we used to buy later these days). I think I can use this for small chip based project, like Gainclone.

I think I got some good stuff salvaged from this old Maranzt PM400AVK. Will see how I can use them for another project.