The "Indestructible iMac" v2.0 - Poly revision 2

[BigTroll]

Re: The "Indestructible iMac" v2.0 - Poly revision 2

Yeah i got a 17 inch i ordered the regular kit from here long ago and its still running, but i never touched the psu, i have a spare psu with bloated caps i should recap it.

[ratdude747]

Re: The "Indestructible iMac" v2.0 - Poly revision 2

i have a spare psu with bloated caps i should recap it.

If it is a a spare, I would. It's easy and IMHO a good idea.

After you recap it, I'd pop it in the iMac and recap the PSU that came out... that way you have two "good" PSUs, not two "time bomb" PSUs.

[Topcat]

Re: The "Indestructible iMac" v2.0 - Poly revision 2

...i ordered the regular kit from here long ago and its still running...

Now thats what I like to see!!

[LLLlllou]

Re: The "Indestructible iMac" v2.0 - Poly revision 2

I finally got around to ordering the last of the polies I needed to recap mine (a 17 inch iSight G5 iMac) so I was re-skimming these iMac threads, and re-Googling. I have two questions:

1) Has anyone actually measured the voltages on any of these caps? Looks like most, if not all the 6.3v caps should be running at well under 2V. I have a butt-load of 2.5V 1500uf polies, but I'm not sure I want to chance it. There's no way to measure the voltages without taking the whole damn thing apart, soldering wires, putting the whole damn thing back together, measuring, taking the whole damn thing apart again, recapping, then putting the whole damn thing together again . . . MASSIVE PITA!

2) I see quite a few of the logic boards on sale on ebay as-is, that have either all Panasonic caps, or a mix if Panies and Rubies. Has anyone actually seen Apple use Panies in any of these, or are these all unsuccessful recaps?
If so, I wonder if the boards have other issues, or if the surplus FL/FJ caps just don't have low enough ESR to make an Apple happy. I'm assuming they're FL or FJ, all I can see is the vents.

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

Re: The "Indestructible iMac" v2.0 - Poly revision 2

The caps in the low side of the VRM see CPU Vcore - this is well under 2v on all CPUs made in the last 15 years or so. And most of today's CPUs are powered from the 12v rail, so the high side caps are easy to spot, they're 16v. All 6.3v caps in the CPU area can be safely replaced with 2.5v ones - in fact, if you look on a motherboard that has polies from the get go, you'll find 2.5v caps.