>Big, huge, gargantuan, monster arrays of dipped silver mica caps?
>
>Seriously, I think you just have to change them often, eg. decadely.
>(That's a perfectly cromulent word.)
<Grumble ... google ... online dictionary ....not there .... try
another...oh, great, gotta pay for that one...sigh>
"Decadely" I accept, it makes sense by analogy with "weekly".
But "cromulent"? Communication is not being served. Got a synonym I
can look up?
>I think spacecraft programmers know about this sort of thing, but you
>could probably design a power supply that presupposed possible failures
>like this, but basically no one but us lunatics care about electronic
>objects lasting more than five, never mind 10 or 20 years.
It's not guaranteed, even there. There are spacecraft instruments in
build with single capacitors in a circuit where fail-short means the
instrument can't turn on. Same job could have been done with two
capacitors in series. Then if either fails short, the circuit still
works. (It might exceed its timing spec, but it'll work.) In fact I
have caused that addition to be made in some instruments and power
supplies, but the design engineers don't seem to learn easily. And
there are some I didn't get to review until "too late" in the design
cycle. Sigh.
--
- Mark
210-522-6025, page 888-733-0967
Received on Tue Feb 17 2004 - 17:45:56 GMT