[TenTec] Orion II A9 Board Failure...Again!

[Ron Castro]

Hank:  Excellent analysis!  Can I please link to that from my page?

I believe, based on this link that there is a direct connection between ESR 
and ripple ratings:

http://wiki.xtronics.com/index.php/Capacitors_and_ESR

"Ripple Current Rating
The ripple current is sometimes rated for a capacitor in RMS current. 
Remembering that P = I2R where R in this case is ESR it is plain to see that 
this is a power dispassion rating. "

Here is a link to the data sheet of the caps I used:

http://www.mouser.com/catalog/specsheets/esrl.pdf

I haven't figured out the calculations, but  the ripple rating is 1355 ma @ 
100 kHz, 50 Volts, 105 C and a "life test" rating of 2,000 hours.  What kind 
of life could I expect in the C6 application?

BTW, I didn't test the caps I removed, but as you can see if you look 
carefully on the 'before' picture on my site, C9 has a bulge on the top of 
its casing.  TT never told me which caps they replaced the first time 
around.  Another interesting thing is that all three original caps were the 
same specs, but all three were different sizes.

http://n6ie.com/A9_Fix.

         Ron N6IE
      www.N6IE.com