[Amps] How Do You Know When Filter Caps Begin to Fail?

[Ron Youvan]

   Carl KM1H wrote:

> Why? They aren't much more reliable.

>> I guess switching over to a few oil caps with appropriate bleeders
>> standing by externally isn't a bad idea after all.
>> Now I know why Henry used them.

   Electrolytic capacitors and light bulbs are the only items in a HAM amplifier (or almost anything 
else) that have a pre-determined life expectancy.
   It doesn't mater if 99% of ham amplifiers use brute force filtering it is a bad idea on many 
levels, just the stored energy discharged during "an event" makes it the poorest of engineering 
practices.  It is so poor I discourage it whenever I can.  Like now.

   After working on hundreds of power supplies of all Voltages over almost 50 years, almost 100% 
using Pi network (low pass) filters with oil filled capacitors, a very few had any problem other 
than springing an oil leak, most frequently at a bushing.
-- 
    73 Ron KA4INM - All E-mail sent to this address shall linger in the Google cloud forever!