Sima ColorCorrector Pro-Series – Repair Log
I decided to pull out my old trusty Sima device to transfer an old home movie the other day. I wanted to make sure the thing actually worked but sadly the correction part of the unit does not work at all. The unit has a bypass switch which is used to view the “before” picture. This part works as intended as the picture is passed though the Sima with no issues. The issue is that once you try to apply any correction to the image everything is badly distorted.
This is not a macrovision or tape degradation issue either.
I ended up replacing all capacitors on this board and there are a lot. There were two that were visibly bad as the electrolyte was leaking from underneath without any bulging. It is interesting to note that I have never actually seen any bad capacitors over the years actually show any bulging that is usually the telltale sign. Most of the time there is no visual indicator that the capacitor is bad from my experience. Learn about capacitor plague.
The capacitors seemed to be Panasonic SU’s which is a good brand but these things tend to fail over time.
Here’s the list of capacitors with quantities and their approximate height/diameter:
- 1x 1000uf 25v 85C HEIGHT: 20MM DIAMETER: 12MM
- 1x 1000uf 16v 85C HEIGHT: 20MM DIAMETER: 10MM
- 1x 1000uf 10v 85C HEIGHT: 15MM DIAMETER: 10MM
- 6x 470uf 16v 85C HEIGHT: 12MM DIAMETER: 10MM
- 2x 100uf 10v 85C HEIGHT: 10MM DIAMETER: 5MM
- 13x 33uf 35v 85C HEIGHT: 10MM DIAMETER: 5MM
- 6x 10uf 50v 85C HEIGHT: 10MM DIAMETER: 5MM
- 1x 4.7uf 50v 85C HEIGHT: 10MM DIAMETER: 5MM
- 3x 2.2uf 50v 85C HEIGHT: 10MM DIAMETER: 5MM
- 4x 1uf 50v 85C HEIGHT: 10MM DIAMETER: 10MM
Sadly this did not fix the unit. I’m not sure where to go from here. Perhaps someone out there has successfully repaired one of these?
