Hi. Just joined today and wondering if anyone can help my query...

A few tips

• Have a practice on a less valuable unit first
  
• A massive range of capacitors is available from RS, Farnell, Mouser, or Digikey
• Magnification is a big help. At home I have one of those magnifying lights incorporating a circular fluorescent tube. At work we have a superb Vision Engineering Lynx microscope. The downside is that it cost about £4000.
• Use lead based solder. In my experience lead free is far more difficult to use (due to the higher melting point).

Finally I wonder if anyone has asked a mobile phone repair place if they would be interested in doing this type of work. While they might never have seen inside such a unit, replacing the capacitors in it would be easy compared with doing things like replacing backlight filters in an iphone. It would be like asking a watchmaker to repair a carriage clock.

 

Who is this guy? Do you have any info about him?

 

You will find him as "Walkman World" on Instagram. His profile says he repairs as well as well as restores. I haven't used his services but I know a serious collector who has. He does do board level work and posts show quite detailed work carried out on Aiwas. He can be messaged on Instagram to find out more about his work and cost details. Sorry can't be more specific.
Cheers

 

Update. My contact says he is 100% happy with the restoration work carried out by Walkman_World at an average $100 per unit. He has a 300+ unit collection and is a regular poster on Instagram as "JustCassette" if you want to DM him I am sure he is willing to share information.