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looking for article on capacitor pop

Happy Hopping

Happy Hopping

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I know capacitor pop is caused by voltage surge, and voltage surge is from your house, but I want to find some lengthy articles from google on this subject, and all google shows is forum chat.

Is there any good article on this?
 
Not sure if this is what you are looking for as it is relating to problems in the manufacturing proccess.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague

I'm not sure what you are looking for exactly. The process of capacitors being burned up or popping due to over-voltage is fairly simple. The voltage is high enough to allow current to pass through the dielectric material inside, causing it to heat up. Pressure builds or the material starts to burn, and it explodes.

This is an article with some reasons: http://www.croberts.com/CAPACITOR FAILURES - EXPOLSIONS.htm
 
I have the 1st link a while ago. But the 2nd link is interesting, thanks for that
 
I really need a link from PSU manufacturer saying that capacitor blown out due to voltage surge is not cover under warranty
 
Happy Hopping said:
I really need a link from PSU manufacturer saying that capacitor blown out due to voltage surge is not cover under warranty
Click to expand...

There's no way to prove that a single capacitor being popped is from a surge or manufacturing defect. The real evidence of a surge might be more damaged components and a popped fuse.

I don't think a voltage spike should kill a PSU unless the spike is over a prolonged period of time.

If you want to find warranty information, you have to look at the manufactures website.
 
You're right. Unless there is say 3 separate incidents. 1 or 2 cases won't be enough.
 
Caps pop for many reasons. They can deteriorate due to age. High temperature can kill them. The electrolyte inside can boil off.

I have an old Geforce videocard that I shelved after an upgrade. Months later the capacitors started popping for unknown reasons. Another month would pass and another cap would pop until all popped. It's puzzling why they continued to do so even when not used. The pop was very alarming and made me jump. It sounded like an electrical arc or a strong static discharge. Each time I thought there was a surge somewhere and then I remembered it was probably my videocard up to no good again.
 
In my case, those people has 1 old PC w/ the capacitor pop, then a few weeks later, they have another brand new PC, replaced the old PC, and that PSU pops the capacitor.

If voltage is normal 115V, can a new PSU still pops its capacitor?
 
With bad luck it can. The psus should have a manufacturers warranty so you can send them back.

Which capacitor is popping btw? one inside the PSU, right? What brand PSUs were they?

Edit - If they are using a 115 V AC supply and the PSU uses active PFC, then a voltage spike should not make the capacitors pop. They are rated pretty highly, around 270 V RMS or so. even then, I imagine that they can handle spikes of 300 V.

Even with the old style (flick switch 110 V - 240 V) PSUs, then the fuse should blow before a capacitor does.

For example, the low-end Corsair CX units (which are borderline products, compared to their others) have an operating range of: "Universal AC input from 90~264V"

The way PSUs are built means that they should be able to handle all but the most massive spikes, especially on 115 V, assuming it is a "real" psu. You would generally notice other electronic equipment dying before a computer's PSU does.
 
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it's the capacitor inside the PSU that pop. It's the Coolmax ZU 600 series. I don't remember if it's PFC or not. So the voltage surge, if there were any, must be higher than 300V then. Either that or a bad cap
 
What brand name is the Cap? There are a ton of low quality Capacitor manufacturers out there.
 
The Coolermax ZU series are terrible PSUs they have an extremely high failure rate with capacitors randomly popping after a few months.
For the same price, you can get a corsair builder series which are much much better.

Edit - Here is an example of a (non-ZU) coolmax PSU: http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/Coolmax-CUL-750B-750-W-Power-Supply-Review/977/10

They buy their PSUs from OEMs and rebrand them, so you really are playing Russian roulette when you buy one. The ZU series is one of the bad ones, I haven't looked into what the good ones are, but there is no point in doing so when you can get a decent Seasonic or Corsair unit for the same price.

Edit 2 - It says that it is active PFC. 115 V mains voltage spikes should not damage the psu, the breaker would flip before that happened or they would notice other electronics failing first. Send it in for warranty replacement, put a corsair builder in your client's system, and try to flog the coolmax on ebay or something.
 
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Coolmax PSUs are shit. Replace it with a solid unit and pray it didn't do any permanent damage.
 
this is the 1st time I have read such a bad report from a website. Usually those "review" are a bunch of ass kissing review, never seen a bad 1

as to coolmax "cooking" the psu wattage no., that's been going on for years. They'll talk to local wholesalers and said, alright, "this is the real wattage, but what
do you want it on the box label, we can print anything you want."

that I know for years. Typical co. from china, all scam artists
 
There are plenty of websites around that will review products properly. HWS is one of the best that I have found for PSUs.
If you look on the newegg product page, you will also find tons of bad reviews (about 50%) for that specific PSU. The capacitors just do not seem to last more than a couple of months.

What are you going to do about the PSU?
 
jonnyguru.com is a great website for reviewing PSUs. [H] does a great job as well, although they don't review as many.
 
When you searched for "capacitor failure modes", did you see this article from United Chemicon, one of the largest capacitor manufacturers in the world?

http://www.chemi-con.com/index.php/failure-modes

or this from Panasonic, another big maker of caps?

http://industrial.panasonic.com/www-data/pdf/ABA0000/ABA0000TE4.pdf

How about another big Japanese maker, Rubycon?

http://www.rubycon.co.jp/en/products/film/technote_pdf/filmcapacitor3.pdf

Nichicon, probably the biggest capacitor manufacturer in the world:

http://www.nichicon.co.jp/english/products/pdf/aluminum.pdf

Here's something from NASA that mentions surges:

http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20110008358_2011008670.pdf

And finally, the US Navy:

http://www.navsea.navy.mil/nswc/crane/sd18/Public Documents/Capacitors/CapacitorsFailureRevA.pdf

Couldn't the cause of failure be determined by looking at the foil & paper and comparing them to those of capacitors that had been intentionally destroyed by applying different high voltages or different temperatures of heat? Be careful if you try that because caps contain nasty chemicals.

Why can't a spike kill a PSU? I know that most have line filter and MOV surge protectors, but those don't block all surges, and not everything on the high voltage side has the 800V maximum rating of the MOSFETs.

OTOH caps don't need a voltage surge to pop, and most of mine have popped because the pressure built inside them when their ESRs became too high and caused them to overheat. Operation was restored after the caps were replaced, and none popped afterward. High ESR may be the main reason electrolytic caps fail.
 
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