Recap your Amiga before the leak reaches the traces
The surface-mount capacitors in every A600 and A1200 are past their design life, and they fail by seeping electrolyte under the can where nobody can see it. Our recap bench strips them off, neutralises the mess underneath, and fits fresh Japanese parts, or solid polymer caps that will never leak at all. Most machines are home again about a week after you post them.
Amiga recap pricing
Covers A500, A500+, A600 and A1200, board or whole machine. CD32 and big-box Amigas welcome, send photos first. £15 deposit books it, balance on completion.
What a leaking Amiga looks like
Any of these on an A600 or A1200 almost always traces back to the caps, and to what they’ve been dripping on.
Yellow or green tint
The picture takes on a colour cast, or whole colours go missing. The caps feeding the video circuitry have drifted, or their leak has reached the RGB lines.
Weak or crackly audio
One channel quiet, distorted or gone. The audio output caps sit in a notorious corner of the board and are usually the first to let go.
Black screen
Power light on, nothing on the display. Collapsed rails or corroded traces around the leaked caps stop the machine ever reaching a boot screen.
Floppy drive errors
Disks that read fine elsewhere fail here. Marginal supply rails and corroded signal lines make the drive electronics unreliable long before they kill them.
Won’t power on
Completely dead, or a brief flicker then nothing. Once the electrolyte reaches the power circuitry, the board stops getting stable volts at all.
A fishy smell
That distinctive whiff near the board is leaked electrolyte, and it means the corrosion is already under way. Time to stop using it and book it in.
The A600 and A1200 leak you can’t see
Surface-mount electrolytics don’t bulge and don’t warn you. They just quietly let go underneath the can.
If it’s never been recapped, it needs it now
The through-hole caps in an A500 at least have the decency to bulge when they fail. The surface-mount electrolytics Commodore fitted to the A600 and A1200 do the opposite: the electrolyte escapes at the base, spreads under the can and along the solder mask, and starts dissolving pads and traces while the machine still appears to work perfectly.
That’s why waiting for symptoms is the expensive strategy. By the time the sound goes crackly or the colours drift, the leak has usually had years of head start, and what would have been a £39 recap can become trace-rebuilding work. Every one of these boards is past the point where the original caps can be trusted, so the honest advice is simple: recap on the calendar, not on the symptoms.
- Every electrolytic removed with controlled heat
- Escaped electrolyte neutralised and cleaned off
- Pads and traces inspected under magnification, minor repairs included
- Fresh Japanese or polymer caps fitted and every joint checked
Two recaps, two flat prices
Book with a £15 deposit. Balance on completion, before return post. Return tracked postage is in the price.
Standard recap
Quality Japanese electrolytics throughout. The right call for most machines.
£39
- Every electrolytic capacitor replaced
- Rubycon, Panasonic or Nichicon parts
- Leak cleanup & minor track repair included
- Board or whole machine, same price
- Old caps bagged and returned to you
Polymer recap
Solid polymer capacitors with no liquid electrolyte. They cannot leak, ever.
£55
- Every electrolytic swapped for solid polymer
- No liquid inside, so no future leaks, full stop
- The buy-once option for a keeper machine
- Leak cleanup & minor track repair included
- Old caps bagged and returned to you
Working boards preferred. A recap is preventative and restorative, not a cure for an existing fault. If your Amiga already misbehaves in a way the symptom list above doesn’t explain, start with our board-level soldering service: the £40 assessment gets it properly diagnosed, the £40 comes off the repair, and the recap folds into the same job.
If a board arrives with leak damage that needs more than minor track repair, we photograph it and quote before any chargeable work. If you’d rather not proceed, we post it back and only the deposit is used.
Every wedge, and the big boxes too
Send the bare board or the whole machine, whichever you’re comfortable with. The price is the same.
Amiga 500 & 500+
Through-hole caps on the classic wedge, plus the A500+’s infamous leaking RTC battery, which we’ll flag (and can deal with) if yours still has one fitted.
Amiga 600
All surface-mount electrolytics, and the smallest, most leak-prone board of the lot. If any Amiga should jump the queue for a recap, it’s this one.
Amiga 1200
Same SMD cap disease as the A600, with more board to protect: AGA chipset, clock port, IDE. A recap now keeps the expensive silicon out of harm’s way.
CD32 & big-box Amigas
A1500, A2000, A3000 and A4000 owners, you’re very welcome, but boards and daughtercards vary, so send photos first and we’ll confirm a price before you post.
Whole machine or bare board
Post whichever suits you. Whole machines are stripped, recapped and rebuilt at no extra cost; bare boards are cheaper and easier to pack.
Not sure what you’ve got?
Inherited a machine, or unsure of the revision? Send a photo of the board and we’ll identify it and tell you honestly what it needs. Photo quotes are free.
What the flat price includes
An Amiga recap done roughly lifts pads and cooks nearby components. This is what careful looks like.
| Every electrolytic | The full set replaced in one pass, through-hole and surface-mount alike; partial recaps just postpone the next leak |
| Parts | Standard tier: Rubycon, Panasonic or Nichicon electrolytics matched to or exceeding original spec. Polymer tier: solid polymer parts with no liquid to leak |
| Leak cleanup | Electrolyte under and around every cap neutralised and cleaned off, never soldered over; residue left behind keeps corroding under new parts |
| Track & pad care | Pads and nearby traces inspected under magnification after cleaning, with minor corrosion repairs included in the price |
| Strip & rebuild | Whole machines are dismantled, recapped and reassembled at no extra cost, with connectors and shielding refitted properly |
| Testing | Boot, video, both audio channels and floppy access checked where the machine can be run on the bench before it’s packed up |
This page is the Amiga arm of our capacitor replacement service. The old caps come back to you in a bag, so you can see exactly what was living on your board.
About a week, door to door
Multi-week waiting lists are common in retro repair. We plan the bench so yours isn’t on one.
Book online
£15 deposit secures your slot. We email the postal address straight away.
Post it in
Board or whole machine, well padded. It’s inspected under magnification on arrival.
The recap
Caps off, board cleaned and neutralised, new parts on, every joint checked, then tested.
Back to you
Balance settled, posted back tracked. Old caps in the box, 90 days on the workmanship.
More retro on the bench
Board & component soldering
Amiga with an actual fault, a snapped connector or leak damage beyond minor repair? Our board-level repair service starts with a £40 assessment that comes off the repair price.
Capacitor replacement & recap
Consoles, monitors, PSUs and even 90s vehicle ECUs get the same treatment on our general recap service, including the famous Original Xbox clock cap.
More 8-bit & handheld recaps
We also recap the ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64, and cure the classic Game Gear and Game Boy screen and sound failures.
Common questions
How much does an Amiga recap cost, and what does the polymer option add?
A standard recap is £39 flat for any A500, A500+, A600 or A1200, using quality Japanese electrolytic capacitors from Rubycon, Panasonic or Nichicon. The polymer recap is £55 flat and fits solid polymer capacitors instead: they contain no liquid electrolyte, so they can never leak, which makes it the buy-once option for a machine you plan to keep. Both prices include leak cleanup, minor track repair and return tracked postage. You book with a £15 deposit and pay the balance when the work is done.
Which Amiga models do you recap?
The flat prices cover the A500, A500+, A600 and A1200. CD32 consoles and big-box Amigas (A1500, A2000, A3000, A4000) are very welcome too, but their boards vary a lot, so send photos first and we’ll confirm a price before you post anything. Photo quotes are free.
My Amiga works fine. Why would it need a recap?
Because on the A600 and A1200 the surface-mount electrolytic capacitors leak underneath the can, where you can’t see it. There’s no bulge and often no smell until the electrolyte has been creeping across the board for years, dissolving traces as it goes. By the time symptoms appear, the damage is already done. If the machine has never been recapped, it needs one now, not when it starts misbehaving. A recap on a working board is cheap insurance; a trace rebuild on a leak-damaged one is not.
My Amiga already has a fault. Is a recap the right service?
Not on its own. A recap is preventative and restorative, and we prefer working boards for exactly that reason. If your Amiga already has a fault, the right route is our board-level soldering service: a £40 assessment gets the board on the bench for a proper diagnosis, the £40 comes off the repair price, and the recap can be folded into that work. If a board arrives for a recap with damage that needs more than minor track repair, we photograph it and quote before any chargeable work; if you’d rather not proceed we return it and only the deposit is used.
Should I send the bare board or the whole machine?
Either is fine and the price is the same. If you’re comfortable getting the board out, a bare board is cheaper to post and easier to pack. If not, send the whole machine and we’ll strip it, recap the board and rebuild it before it comes back. Whole machines also let us check the little extras while it’s open, like the state of the RTC battery on machines that have one.
How long does an Amiga recap take?
Typical turnaround is about a week door to door: post it Monday, it’s usually back on your desk the following week. Retro recapping is a scene where multi-week waiting lists are normal, so we deliberately keep the recap bench clear of backlog. If your board needs extra work beyond the recap, we tell you as soon as we’ve inspected it.
Is there a warranty on the recap?
90 days on the workmanship. If a capacitor we fitted or a joint we made fails in normal use, we put it right free of charge.
How do I pack an Amiga for the post?
For a whole machine: wrap it in bubble wrap, put it in a sturdy box with at least 5cm of padding on every side, and make sure nothing can shift in transit. Remove any loose accessories and don’t post the PSU unless we ask for it. For a bare board: anti-static bag if you have one (a clean plastic bag is an acceptable stand-in), then bubble wrap, then a box with padding all round. We email you the postal address as soon as you book, so all you need is a box and a tracked postage service.
Give it another thirty years
Flat prices, Japanese or solid polymer caps, leak cleanup and return tracked postage included, with 90 days on the workmanship. Serving the whole UK by post from Basingstoke.