17 Nov
2004
17 Nov
'04
2:05 a.m.
Peter,
IIRC that's the same cap that failed in one of my HP 2117s a year ago. Same symptom,
it ran fine for hours then suddenly failed. One of the things that I moticed was that the
computer kept running and even though I turned off the power switch the cap kept sizzling.
I had to unplug the line cord to stop it. I also had exactly the same thing happen an
another 2117 last Sunday but I haven't taken the PSU apart to see what failed in it
yet. Also had one of those small surpressor caps fail in my BBC Micro last year. Again
with the same scenrio. They don't seem to hold up well.
Joe
At 02:45 AM 11/17/04 +0000, you wrote:
Hi All,
Excitement in the lab last night! - I left the 2113B running on the bench
whilst I went to make a cup of tea (yep, British) only to return to a room
full of smoke.
Turned out that the 240 volt rated 0.22u surpressor capacitor (mounted
across the live and neutral pins on the mains socket) had decided to give up
the ghost. No real damage done - just a bit stinky and a bit of smoke
damage.
The machine had run just fine for about two hours before the cap decided to
break. This has happened to me before on another piece of ageing
electronics - it is probably worth checking all old electronics for this
type of surpressor capacitor and replacing them BEFORE turning the equipment
on.
Hope that this is of help to someone.
Peter Brown