[Amps] How to know when filter caps begin to fail

Randall, Randy Randy.Randall at uchealth.com
Thu Mar 29 07:55:27 PDT 2012


My experience has been mostly shorts, and opens, but I did have a cap in a string start arcing internally.  You could hear a nice frying buzz.  I pulled the plug before any other damage occurred.  I got lucky on that one.
No bangs so far.

Randy

Randy E. Randall AB9GO
Network Engineer
UC Health
Randy.Randall at UCHealth.com
Phone 513-585-7146
Fax 513-585-7159

-----Original Message-----
From: amps-bounces at contesting.com [mailto:amps-bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf Of Jim Garland
Sent: Thursday, March 29, 2012 12:17 AM
To: amps at contesting.com
Subject: Re: [Amps] How to know when filter caps begin to fail


My experience is that the only time electrolytic caps explode is either when the polarity is backwards or when a rectifier diode fails and AC appears across them. I've found other age-related failures to generally be more benign. Generally they just lose their capacitance but don't start conducting. Now tantalum caps are another story. They almost always fail by short circuiting, sometimes catching fire.
73,
Jim W8ZR

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