Electrolytic Capacitor Life Span.
Electrolytic Capacitor Life Span.
(OP)
Hi All,
I have a problem with a certain type of electrolytic capacitor currently being returned from our customer because of leakage. It is a 1000uF, 10Volt type. They all have the same "N3" (March 2001) date code and were made by the same Company in the same factory. They have been in use since the end of 2001. I do not know what operating conditions they have experienced whilst with the customer.
My question is: Am I seeing the natural end of the life span of such a capacitor? Or am I dealing with a bad batch of components?
All help much appreciated.
I have a problem with a certain type of electrolytic capacitor currently being returned from our customer because of leakage. It is a 1000uF, 10Volt type. They all have the same "N3" (March 2001) date code and were made by the same Company in the same factory. They have been in use since the end of 2001. I do not know what operating conditions they have experienced whilst with the customer.
My question is: Am I seeing the natural end of the life span of such a capacitor? Or am I dealing with a bad batch of components?
All help much appreciated.
RE: Electrolytic Capacitor Life Span.
What does the manufacturer say?
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Sometimes I only open my mouth to swap feet...
RE: Electrolytic Capacitor Life Span.
The end result is that capacitors have been failing in computer motherboards made approximately around these dates.
I don't fool around with computer mother boards, but I've seen two with this failure mode already. The capacitors leak, and the capacitance goes down before the capacitors fail with a short. A board with these capacitors will show several capacitors of the same type that are visually leaking.
Normal capacitor wear/tear has the capacitor decreasing in capacitance with no leakage visible.
A quick google even brought up this website: http://www.badcaps.net/ I'm sure more internet searching will find more data.
This was previously mentioned in a reply by me in another post: thread248-173627
Normal electrolytics are typically rated for 85C or 105C. A check of the data sheet will show a rating at these temperatures for so many thousands of hours.
RE: Electrolytic Capacitor Life Span.
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Sometimes I only open my mouth to swap feet...
RE: Electrolytic Capacitor Life Span.
Remember that AL caps have generally lousy lifetimes. Like 1,000 hours... These lifetimes are at the rated temp with the rated ripple. If you actually use them at some much lower temp and with lower ripple the lifetime expands out exponentially. What this means is small operating changes can greatly change the expected lifetimes, so you need to understand how your caps were utilized.
Keith Cress
Flamin Systems, Inc.- http://www.flaminsystems.com