28 Oct
2006
28 Oct
'06
2:21 p.m.
aliensrcooluk at yahoo.co.uk wrote:
While poking around inside the Dreamcast
games consoles I noticed some familiar
components which I has seen similar versions
of in my Amiga.
The first one is what I have dubbed the "power
towers" and they look like vertical batteries.
Usually come in groups of 5. Can anyone tell
me there name and/or what they do?
Probably electrolytic capacitors. They'll have a stripe indicating the
negative side, and a voltage and capacitance rating. They are used in
the power supply sections to smooth out the voltage.
They fail - the ends start to bulge and they leak conductive goo. This
causes all manner of problems, including random crashes and resets.
It's worth making sure none are on the way out, and possibly just
replacing them with similar ones. Let's face it, you can hardly make it
work any less, just unlikely to ever work again.
The second thing is the erm... plastic(?) "polo
mint" that has what appears to be copper
wire wrapped around it. Can anyone give me
(or send me in the right direction to find)
any information on it.
It's a choke. The plastic bit is made of ferrite, which is a sort of
magnetic ceramic material. Again, it's a power supply thing, used to
stop high-frequency interference making its way out through the power leads.
Gordon.