Thanks for the vivid visual images!
I'd be interested in hearing any horror stories
relating to exploding
capacitors and more info on the proper caution that needs to be
exercised when messing with old power supplies.
Well, I've never had a cap in a power supply go bang. But I did once
put together a circuit and carelessly use a cap rated for about half
the expected voltage - I was checking only the capacitance, my bad.
It was working fine, only I started hearing this funny hissing noise.
Just as I was deciding I should find out what was hissing, it blew.
It was a small cap - somewhere in the 200?F/6V range - and didn't
damage anything else, though it did spread a film of something
unpleasantly oily over everything within a foot or so. There was also
a rather impressive cloud of what looked like grey smoke but which I
suspect was actually the oily substance.
Based on what happened to that tiny one, I definitely would not want to
be around one of the big ones going bang. That cap had only a couple
of millicoulombs in it, and it still made an impressive enough bang
that I was glad I was multiple feet away; one holding more like a
coulomb or two I would much rather be in the other room for.
Gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "cap pistol". :)
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