Time travel to 1956: Radiomarelli RD-160 Amico

I finally did it: I bought a valve AM radio.

Radiomarelli RD-160 "Amico".

It is a Radiomarelli RD-160 "Amico" built on or after 1956. It was sold as non-working for "just" 5 € after nobody bought it for months. No wonder... In the worst case, individual parts are worth more (if bought individually, for other projects, not on the current market).

The first, off-grid, check reveals that the case is clean whereas cracked (it's plastic, can be glued together). The circuit is relatively clean and not rusty, all valves are present. The audio transformer is a bit loose and has one suspicious floating wire. The volume knob turns indefinitely and doesn't click on/off. The tuning knob runs the indicator bar just fine. Looks like a good troubleshooting playground and, at worst, I will retrofit it with some sort of Internet-radio receiver (not my original idea).

Can't get along with AMS1117 regulator!

There is something wrong between me and AMS1117 linear voltage regulators: I keep frying them! It first happened on two adapters for breadboard, but in that case I suspected I initiated some self-oscillation by using input leads of different length (comments on the same blog post explain other causes, worth reading!).

Then I blew it on a Arduino Nano clone, those that also mount the CH340 USB chip. Maybe I did something wrong, I don't remember. That circuit is running with a 7805 now, and gets pretty warm.

Last event was last night, when testing a PWM voltage booster with the same Arduino Nano clone board ("same batch"). I fed 12V the board and it all became quite warm. Since I wasn't getting the PWM output I resorted to powering it via USB, but this time I used an inline USB tester to see the current consumption: 150 mA. That sounded wrong for a board that was doing nothing. Once I sorted out the firmware to produce PWM, I reconnected everything on 12V and I didn't get any output, nor I could talk to the board over USB. Basically dead. So I phisically removed the AMS1117-5.0 with pliers (I began unsoldering, but it was taking too long). Result? The board still drains 110 mA and it is not recognised on USB. To the recycle bin.

NEXT!

Well, this time I will build my own 5V regulator with the trusty 7805.