Aluminum Electrolytics (was: M7891-DC 2a fuse on +12? fixed!)

From: John Lawson <jpl15_at_panix.com>
Date: Fri Feb 6 23:56:50 2004

On Fri, 6 Feb 2004, CRC wrote:

>
> So all is not cut and dried. You have to know what you are working
> with... Hey, and I match your 40+ and raise you a few...
>
>

[finds reading glasses, Geritol, don't need teeth... lessee here]



  Waaaallll.... no duh! BUT: I was preaching to the congregation, not the
choir.

  You and I probably can deliver chapter and verse on the care and feeding
of fundamental components, their history and evolution, physics,
chemistry, mechanics and electronics of them... no doubt.

But a lot of folks on the list (most of the folks on the List) are not EEs
or MSEs or PhDEs... and we have a very mixed approach to actual
'electronics' - from those who have long careers behind them in design and
implementation of electronic circuits and devices - to those to whom
electricity is a mystery, an unknown field.

  So when it is stated in simple language that one can form/reform
questionable electrolytics in 'one second' with a Variac (or whatever) -
this is exposing people to danger and property to damage, IMHO.

  That's the point I was trying to make - that there is no 'general case'
when bringing up gear with long inop times - and that one cannot prescribe
a fixed time span to reform the caps in a (linear) power supply by the
Variac method, unless one is aware of the various other points you bring
up.


 And of course you're spot-on in reference to SMPSUs - 'brown' input
voltages will often kill 'em dead.

  And speaking of War Stories: Ever been in the same room with an
exploding 1.7F 800VDC storage bank?

  It's LOUD......


    ;}



Cheers

John
Received on Fri Feb 06 2004 - 23:56:50 GMT