Finally, to complete my collection of HP Impedance Analyers, I found a 4192A really cheap. As always with cheap things, there is a catch – this unit has some scratches, and doesn’t power up.

Well, usually no big deal, so I placed a bid and some time later the big box arrived. Similar to other HPY (Japanese-made) impedance analyzers, this unit has a lot of empty space inside, and is big and bulky, but at least, this simplifies repair.

Opening up the covers, the main issue is quickly found – the NiCd memory backup batteries have leaked some alkaline substance to the board and case, reading to some damaged components.
Fortunately, the corrosion is not looking too bad, at least the PCB traces are present, and the solder joints seem to conduct electricity.

The front view, you can see the scratches and dirt, but an overall complete unit. No boards missing. Despite their age, these units are normally still traded at 1-2 kUSD, and list price used to be close to 15 kUSD in the late 80s. New units of similar accuracy and range will easily cost you the same, in 2019 dollars.

The board affected, the A7 power supply assy. A switchmode supply. According to the manual, HP used a switchmode supply to reduce the weight and make the unit more portable (???? – what is portable about this box).

The bay holding the power supply, you can clearly see some traces of corrosion, but it is only superficial. The NiCd electrolyte has a tendency to leak out and then slowly creep with moisture all over the place.

These are the General Electric troublemakers!

Best cure for such leakage – wash with plenty of hot water.

Then scrub with a toothbrush, and scrub with vinegar (don’t use any concentrated acid). Vinegar will neutralize any traces of alkali electrolyte.

This is some of the worst placed, but fortunately, the traces were not affected much, and even the leads have a lot of good metal left.

Many good and well known parts in this unit – the CPU

… many Eproms holding very few kbytes each…

Pricy DACs.

And, the first fix – replaced the NiCd batteries with a commercial NiMH pack. There is a 1 kOhm resistor on the board, charging from less than 5 Volts – so this will be fine even for NiMH (less than 0.03 C trickly charge won’t cause any significant deterioration of NiMH cells).

Also – replaced 3 cracked RIFA 15 nF Y-rated caps.

Further repairs will have to wait until I come back from Germany in a few weeks, because some parts on the power supply board show damages, a ceramic capacitor (10 n, 100 V) that didn’t like the electrolyte and a diode (similar to 1N4148).
The electrolytic caps still look OK, but we will see in a while.