16 Mar
2005
16 Mar
'05
4:40 p.m.
On Wed, 2005-03-16 at 23:45 +0000, Pete Turnbull wrote:
The second was a non-polarised electrolytic in an
Atari monitor. The
original had failed, so I looked through the catalogues for a similar
type. The only one I found of the same capacitance and voltage claimed
to have a suitably large ripple current capacity, but was quite a lot
smaller than the original. I was a bit skeptical, but hey, technology
moves on and capacitors get smaller every year, right?
That's bothering me for this Sun 2 where I've replaced the ageing PSU
caps after one failed last week. The replacements (which I scrounged
from the Colossus guys) are a heck of a lot smaller.
But then it's a
difference in technology of around 20 years...
They've held together OK on a light load test, but it'll be interesting
to see if they continue to do so under normal operating load. Unlike the
large caps that they've replaced, the smaller newer ones appear to have
no safety valve in the base, so it'll be an impressive noise if they do
go. Luckily the PSU has a lot of metal around it...
cheers
Jules