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Reviews For: Heathkit Shop HP23RL Kit (Upgrade for HP-23 supplies)

Category: Ham Radio Kits

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Review Summary For : Heathkit Shop HP23RL Kit (Upgrade for HP-23 supplies)
Reviews: 4MSRP: 55.95 + $6 shipping
Description:
A small PCB replaces all but the switch, choke, transformer, breaker, connector and hardware - all the old caps, diodes and resistors are new! Fits on existing mounting holes - no drilling required.
Product is in production
More Info: http://www.theheathkitshop.com/page3/page3.html
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
0045
KA6AKH Rating: 2020-12-25
Saved me some time Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I have rebuilt 2 HP-23A's in the last 6 years and had some more to do. Bought 3 assembled boards and put them in this week while on holiday, 2 HP-23A's and 1 HP-23C. Great refurbishment. Voltages all within spec. I highly recommend the HP23RL!
KA9P Rating: 2018-04-07
Great Product Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Still a great product! After having a cap failure in an HP23, got religion and ordered Mike’s kit. Great communication, instructions and quality, went in quickly with no surprises, and will do it again when I do my Drakes.
K3NB Rating: 2014-06-28
Breathing new life into old stuff Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I recently bought a good/used Heathkit HW-101 with an HP23C power supply.

I decided I'd buy this kit from Mike Bryce, WB8VGE rather than piecemeal replace the electrolytics (and several - apparently cooked - resistors) in the PS after finding it during a search for "HP23C electroytics" looking to see if anyone else had documented how they did this. This looked like a very good deal. Compact, concise, everything on one board on TOP of the supply where air can circulate, a good design.

You can download and view the instructions before buying to get an idea of what you're actually getting. For me, the price was worth the tradeoff in time involved in buying the parts, paying S&H, and doing the tedious work of cutting and pasting new components into an already built unit. Did I really want to cut the old electrolytic capacitor towers open, gut them, and implant new, smaller capacitors for looks? No. Who's looking? Besides, I think the finished product looks like it was designed that way. The PCB is very high-quality and comes with 1/4" risers for raising it above the PS frame so you don't short it out and to leave room for routing wires through the capacitor holes. If you are rebuilding an HP23C you will have to cut one of those mounting screws (or find one shorter) as it butts into the circuit breaker/reset switch below.

I had a spare - flat - 3-wire power cord in very flexible condition and replaced that too.

Couple of small details. The model I was working on was an HP23C. Mike's instructions and schematic are for the earlier model, the ones with hi/lo power switching.

At the beginning of the assembly instructions Mike mention words to the effect of "I assume you have the manual/schematic for your power supply."

Um, nope.

So once I got through his instructions and had everything connected - I thought - I had this one little wire left over... GRN/BLK from the transformer.

It took only a a few minutes poking around online to find the right schematic. D'oh! Spliced it into the black, hot AC line in and I was in business.

Got the unit fired up last night - works like new. Unfortunately I don't have a VOM that's good for over 250 V but the lower V outputs were good and I assumed so too would the 800+ V output. Apparently so. No QSOs but indicated power on the HW-101 and actual output on my HF-auto tune tells me that's fine too.

Right in time for Field Day and the 13 colonies events.

Got the rest of the electrolytics for the SW-101 on order and it looks like this thing might be working well into the 22d century once I do some cut and paste and align it.

This is worth the money, takes very little time to assemble and install (I did it slowly, scavenging the older parts/diodes) about two hours total time, and got some spare parts (nuts, bolts, ground tabs and connector strips) for later projects. I'd buy it again in a heartbeat.
W1EUJ Rating: 2009-01-16
Job Well Done! Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
Bought this for an HP-23A that had bad filter caps. Got a high quality kit with a silkscreened and solder resist coated PCB, very professional. The instructions (which are also available on the website) are complete and I had the board finished in no time.

Take care when installing the transformer wires - there are two different ways to do it (depending it you want to use the voltage switch or not), and if you don't pay attention, you can mess up. The confusion is really from the different versions of the HP-23 that exist, and not the manual, though I'd suggest a couple of drawings to help make the point.

I've run this power supply for some time now, and no problems have occured. I got all the correct voltages from the power supply on the bench and during operation. I have no worries leaving the room for dinner and leaving it on, like I do with some of my other radios.

Shipped in reasonable time too.

Another good guy helping to keep boatanchors running!