Testing the TK Tar Baby

[MileHigh]

PW:

I think a few of us suspect that "Equipe NERD" is just Rosemary and a few cats.  And that's not slang for cool dudes or dudettes.  lol

[picowatt]

PW:

I think a few of us suspect that "Equipe NERD" is just Rosemary and a few cats.  And that's not slang for cool dudes or dudettes.  lol

Really?? ...

[Magluvin]

There was a famous scandal, I think it was Nichicon electrolytic capacitors that were manufactured for a few years with an inferior electrolyte.  They failed prematurely and puffed up and oozed.  Something like "The great motherboard capacitor scandal."  I think it happened in the early 2000s.  I believe that it affected millions of motherboards.

A lot of caps in the mid 90s, SM can electrolytic, would leak on the board and corrode local circuitry and traces. Multilayer boards, fugidaboudit.  When you touch them with a soldering iron, it smells of putrid cat pee.  Camcorders were the worst for this problem.

My boss at the time was fighting a lawsuit because an electrolytic cap on a TV board popped and the can hit him in the eye. The top of the cap didnt split.

MaGs

[MileHigh]

You want a capacitor discharge story?  I have one but I am bending the definition a bit.

In the 70s Vivtar made a great electronic flash for SLR cameras.  It was big and beefy and it had a fresnel lens attachment for telephoto flash.  You could pivot the whole flash head up 45 degrees for "bounce flash" off the ceiling for more softly lit flash photos.  The reason I mention this is because it was in "power boost" mode when you used the "bounce flash."

So myself and my best friend were hanging out and we first "got small."   We sat in the dark for 20 minutes so our pupils opened up fully.  We took the flash and put translucent multi-coloured plastic pieces from a Risk board game on top of the fresnel lens flash hood and put the flash in "bounce flash" mode.  We covered the light meter on the flash so that it would discharge all of it's energy.

Then, staring down at the flash hood covered with all of the coloured plastic pieces in the pitch dark.....

KAAA-BOOOOOM!!!!!!   lol

Talk about seeing stars!!!   The afterimage must have lasted five minutes!!!!

[picowatt]

OK, seriously...

The capacitor's voltage rating need only be equal to or greater than the voltage applied to it.  Typically we specify that the cap's voltage rating be 1.5X or 2X the applied voltage as a safety factor.  For a single 12 volt battery, a capacitor with a 25 volt or greater voltage rating should be used.

Don't apply 12 volts across a 6.3 volt cap, or 60 volts across a 25 volt cap!   

If only one battery is to be bypassed, I'd go with a 25 volt (or greater) cap.  Personally, I would consider using an electrolytic paralleled with a ceramic or two (or a film type paralleled with a ceramic or two). 

For the CSR bypass, a 10 to 15 volt cap would suffice (again, a higher voltage cap is also OK).  I would consider a non-polarized elecrtrolytic (or a film cap) paralleled by a ceramic or two.

If using electrolytic capacitors, observe polarity!!  This is not a concern with film or non-polarized electrolytics.

Bone tossed...