My HV input filter cap collection (good and bad?)

[eccerr0r]

I suspect most people don't see thse caps fail often, but I ended up collecting these as I parted dead PSUs over the years. Now I don't remember which came from what, but I definitely parted 7 ATX PSUs as there are 7 pairs of capacitors...

Oddly enough they are all 470/200's indicating all of the PSUs are around 200-250W despite distinctly remembering one that was "rated" 400W. Liars.

I did a quick ESR check on all of them, none where way out in the weeds. The JEE 470's were the worst, the others were out of the resolution of my ESR meter. They also appear to be out of a unit that suffered heat as witnessed by a bunch of fried glue on them. I think they belong in the trash, I'll never use these capacitors... or any of the other better ones most likely, either.

The HECs were the only ones with domed tops, but it's a plastic bubble top not metal... and you can press down on the top without too much difficulty.

I'm surprised I haven't seen any duplicates yet, indicating there are one heck of a lot of capacitor companies out there...

Nitsuko Nichicon HEC Panasonic JEE NipponChemicon Rubycon Viva

Just in case if anyone's interested...

[lti]

Re: My HV input filter cap collection (good and bad?)

By "out of range," I assume you meant that the ESR was too low for your ESR meter to measure. In that case, the Jee caps are probably bad. The rest could be kept, but I wouldn't use the HEC, Viva, or the 330uF Jee for anything critical.

The only "high voltage" cap I have is a 680uF 200V from an old TV. It has no brand name on it, but it has date of 1987 marked on it.

[Pentium4]

Re: My HV input filter cap collection (good and bad?)

Yeah HEC are pretty terrible. Nice collection though

[Heihachi_73]

Re: My HV input filter cap collection (good and bad?)

Capacitor bank.

[PeteS in CA]

Re: My HV input filter cap collection (good and bad?)

One thing ... the Nichicon, Rubycon, and Nippon Chemicon parts are all from good series, BUT they are 85*C parts, not 105C parts. They're good parts but should be used with decent cooling.

[Pentium4]

Re: My HV input filter cap collection (good and bad?)

Aren't most input caps rated at 85C? And is that JEE cap burned or does it just have conductive glue on it?

[eccerr0r]

Re: My HV input filter cap collection (good and bad?)

The JEEs have fried glue on them indeed. Out into the dump they go, or maybe they should go through a dissection...

Then again nothing very interesting in a capacitor...

[PeteS in CA]

Re: My HV input filter cap collection (good and bad?)

Aren't most input caps rated at 85C?

Nope. The Nichicon series in the pic is the LK series; the corresponding 105C series was the GK series. The NCC/UCC series in the pic is the SMH series; the corresponding 105C series was the KMH series. Those series came out in the late 80s, as 85*C and 105*C parallel series; I'm sure you would find similar parallel series in Nichicon's and UCC's (and others') current catalogs.

[momaka]

Re: My HV input filter cap collection (good and bad?)

The JEEs have fried glue on them indeed. Out into the dump they go, or maybe they should go through a dissection...

If you were closer, I'd snatch those caps from your right away. Got quite a few projects in mind that can use them.

I also second the capacitor bank idea. You have 14 usable 200V 470uF caps. Put them all in series and charge to about 2 to 2.4 KV. That's quite a bit of energy there!

[Heihachi_73]

Re: My HV input filter cap collection (good and bad?)

Also doubles as a crude spot welder, just don't end up on the wrong end of it... as HDXFH says on YouTube, "safety first" and always leave them discharged/shorted after use.

[Pentium4]

Re: My HV input filter cap collection (good and bad?)

momaka, I have a pile of Elite/CapXon/YC/OST input caps just sitting around...I have too many. most are 470uF and 560uF

[Pentium4]

Re: My HV input filter cap collection (good and bad?)

Thought I'd share mine is well, I like collecting input caps too this is probably half. I should be getting an ESR meter and capacitance tester soon I'm curious about their results. Out of all of them I think the Fuhjyyu is by far the most overspec'd. Not only are they small for 560's, they're as light as a feather!

[Heihachi_73]

Re: My HV input filter cap collection (good and bad?)

I have only been pillaging caps for the past year or so, so I don't have many filter caps to play around with.

Nichicon LK 180uF 450V 85°C N0124 - this one came from a 2001-era 51cm Sony CRT TV, found on the roadside with a smashed tube. Every other cap inside was either Nichicon VR or Rubycon YK/YXA (all 85°C general purpose), no cheap brand caps to be found.

Teapo LXK 470uF 200V 85°C 05/04 - My former Acer OEM, FSP Group FSP200-60ATV power supply (link here).

Su'scon LX 470uF 200V 85°C - Trash-found, blown L&C crappy PSU (link here).

HEC LX 220uF 200V 105°C. "L" (red italic L in a circle) ALS-300 ATX PSU. No pics since I had already dismantled and scrapped the PSU. However, I may put up pics of a second identical, working PSU in the near future. The tops looked domed on both caps, but it was found to be just the plastic cover after removing the top from one.

JEE CE·W 330uF 200V 85°C IM 9828 - King World crappy PSU (link here).

Nbccon 330uF 160V photo flash cap - Trash-found, dead, 2000-era Olympus digital camera complete with two leaked gold-coloured Coles (supermarket) brand AA alkaline batteries and acid everywhere. For those down here, it was the old Coles logo formerly used on Farmland products and the like, so those batteries must have been in there for years on end. The LCD panel on the camera was smaller than a Game Boy screen!

[ben7]

Re: My HV input filter cap collection (good and bad?)

Thought I'd share mine is well, I like collecting input caps too this is probably half. I should be getting an ESR meter and capacitance tester soon I'm curious about their results. Out of all of them I think the Fuhjyyu is by far the most overspec'd. Not only are they small for 560's, they're as light as a feather!

You should cut open the fuhjyyu's and look inside!

Get rid of the OST's, they like to pop.

I have some caps to share, pics might be coming soon...

[goodpsusearch]

Re: My HV input filter cap collection (good and bad?)

I don't believe that you advice him to throw away the OST. HV caps rarely go bad, even when they are crappy brand like JunFu or even Capxon. OST HV caps, I would assume them as being quite reliable.

[ben7]

Re: My HV input filter cap collection (good and bad?)

I don't believe that you advice him to throw away the OST. HV caps rarely go bad, even when they are crappy brand like JunFu or even Capxon. OST HV caps, I would assume them as being quite reliable.

Sorry, I just had to say that, because I have seen about half a dozen of them bulged. All 680uF 200v....

Anybody seen 'MK' brand primary capacitors? I have two, not sure if they are cheapos or not. They feel heavy.

[goodpsusearch]

Re: My HV input filter cap collection (good and bad?)

Ok, I didn't have any similar experience. Maybe, they were in APFC psus?

[momaka]

Re: My HV input filter cap collection (good and bad?)

momaka, I have a pile of Elite/CapXon/YC/OST input caps just sitting around...I have too many. most are 470uF and 560uF

Teapo, Su'scon, Elite, and OST are okay IMO. Too bad I'm on the other coast. I doubt shipping will be cheap (but if it is, PM me ).

Get rid of the OST's, they like to pop.

Not their HV ones. On those hot HP DC5000 and D530 SFF computers I'm working on, 9/10 have OST 200V 470uF caps in their PSUs, and they have all been working fine for many years. And FYI, the PSUs run very hot. So they must be okay caps then (IMO).

Anybody seen 'MK' brand primary capacitors?

I've only seen them in very VERY cheap CWT ISO power supplies. I also recently saw 470uF 200V Fuhjyyu MK caps in a LinkWorld PSU. And the weird bit is that both the CWT ISOs and the LinkWorld I saw had Fuhjyyu caps everywhere else, so I wonder if MK is related in any way to Fuhjyyu.
Based on that, I wouldn't think they are that good. Probably as crappy as the other cheap brands (but better than CapXon for sure!).

[eccerr0r]

Re: My HV input filter cap collection (good and bad?)

It's kind of funny these capacitors store a lot of energy compared to my *much* physically larger .3F 7.5V and .22F 15V caps... just because of Q=C*V*V/2 ...

Anyone try to spot weld with these things? Though at 200V this is quite dangerous... Charging the .3F to 7.5V just doesn't seem dangerous except it's still a lot of power due to rapid discharge...

(and I still find it odd I haven't gotten any 680, 820uF 200V caps yet...)

[momaka]

Re: My HV input filter cap collection (good and bad?)

It's kind of funny these capacitors store a lot of energy compared to my *much* physically larger .3F 7.5V and .22F 15V caps... just because of Q=C*V*V/2 ...

Yup.
Now imagine the example I was talking about above with 14x 200V 470uF caps in series charged to 2.4 KV (about 171 V per capacitor). You get:
U = 0.5 x C x V^2 where
C = 470/ 14 uF = ~33.6 uF = 33.6 x 10^-6 F and V = 2400V
So U = ~96.7 joules!!
Compare that to just 8.44 joules for the 0.3F capacitor charged to 7.5V.

That's actually one of the reasons why modern PC power supplies have APFC - the slight increase in the voltage in the primary cap greatly increases the energy stored in it, and this allows the power supply to pull more power than it did before with the 2x 200V caps.