Are there caps that did not age and can be used as replacement for wet ones?

[vwtcxqdh]

Are there now replacement caps (size kind of same) existing that did not age any more and are not wet any more? Would be nice if a PSU can be fixed by replacing once all wet caps (maybe not the 400V one) and have then a PSU that would last 20 years or longer of daily usage.

[momaka]

Re: Are there caps that did not age and can be used as replacement for wet ones?

No.

All electronics components age. Electrolytic caps just tend to age a lot faster due to having liquid electrolyte inside. However, that does not mean you can't have a piece of electronic equipment with electrolytic caps last for 20 years. Take a look at CRT monitors and TVs, for example - there are still 20 and 30 year old sets out there with original caps that are still in service. Good quality Japanese electrolytic caps are only projected to have a maximum useful life of 15 years. But in reality, they usually last a lot longer.

That said, you won't ever find a PC PSU last 20 years without some maintenance. Why? Because there are other things that can make the PSU fail, like dust accumulation and the PSU's fan going bad. If you are looking for a PC PSU to last that long, the following must be met:
1) PSU is recapped with Japanese caps
2) PSU is taken out of service every 2-5 years for dust cleaning and its fans checked and replaced if needed
3) PSU is not stressed near its maximum limits.
4) PSU is not a semi-fanless or completely fanless design
5) PSU does not have an APFC circuit. That's not to say that APFC PSUs are failure-prone, but so far they've had worse track record than non-PFC and PPFC PSUs - at least when it comes to the primary caps going bad.

[goodpsusearch]

Re: Are there caps that did not age and can be used as replacement for wet ones?

No.

1) PSU is recapped with Japanese caps
2) PSU is taken out of service every 2-5 years for dust cleaning and its fans checked and replaced if needed
3) PSU is not stressed near its maximum limits.
4) PSU is not a semi-fanless or completely fanless design
5) PSU does not have an APFC circuit. That's not to say that APFC PSUs are failure-prone, but so far they've had worse track record than non-PFC and PPFC PSUs - at least when it comes to the primary caps going bad.

1) yeap
2) every 3-5 years would be fine
3) unlikely to happen. I haven't yet seen a pc with more than 350W power draw.
4) that's the reason I always fan mod psus I recap/mod.

[vwtcxqdh]

Re: Are there caps that did not age and can be used as replacement for wet ones?

I have read few times from Stefan Payne that the FSP Hexa+ II have only one single wet cap. All other caps were dry caps.
I was not able to find out from wehre he got that information. I was also not able to find a picture of the inside of the FSP Hexa+ 2 PSU.
Did someone have any news about that PSU?

[momaka]

Re: Are there caps that did not age and can be used as replacement for wet ones?

I have read few times from Stefan Payne that the FSP Hexa+ II have only one single wet cap. All other caps were dry caps.

And that one wet cap was probably the primary cap... and those do fail a lot more often than in non-APFC PSUs, hence my condition #5 above. Again, that's not to say that APFC automatically makes a PSU less reliable, but it seems that a lot of manufacturers don't design them quite right.

Also again, don't obsess with that "wet cap... dry cap" BS. If a PSU is designed badly, it will cook *ANY* capacitor. What's worse, polymers caps (or "dry" caps as you like to call them) probably won't show any signs of failure when they do go bad, so you could be stuck with a PSU that doesn't work with nothing "obviously" wrong with it.

[budm]

Re: Are there caps that did not age and can be used as replacement for wet ones?

"Also again, don't obsess with that "wet cap... dry cap" BS."
+1000.
Just fixed the HP monitor with shorted 'DRY CAP'.

[Behemot]

Re: Are there caps that did not age and can be used as replacement for wet ones?

4) PSU is not a semi-fanless or completely fanless design

I see no reason for that, with high-end PSU manufacturers offering 10y warranty. Or industrial fanless PSUs also often working for decades.

[momaka]

Re: Are there caps that did not age and can be used as replacement for wet ones?

I see no reason for that, with high-end PSU manufacturers offering 10y warranty. Or industrial fanless PSUs also often working for decades.

Industrial, medical, and military class gear is in a whole other category.
But regular consumer gear is usually junk and often designed with cost/value in mind before anything else.

As for the 10 year warranties... that means the manufacturer probably (hopefully) designed their PSUs for about 100000 hours MTBF. But none of that is too relevant, because most people don't really keeps receipts for that long and/or they just won't bother to send the PSU back (this is especially true of non-technical folks, who usually just need their computer fixed/running and would rather install a junk PSU in their PC to get it working NOW rather than wait who-knows-how-long to get an RMA/warranty claim from the PSU manufacturer.) Don't believe me? When I worked in the PC repair shop last spring and someone brought us a PC with bad PSU that was under warranty, not a single customer requested we follow up with the manufacturer to get their PSU replaced under warranty, because most of the time that mean waiting a very long time and made it pretty much unacceptable for the customer.

So those 10 years warranties are BS too. Not in the sense that the PSUs won't last that long (most probably will) nor that the manufacturers won't honor them, but mostly because people usually won't bother to send a PSU back after that many years.

Thus, I'd rather get a simple PSU and recap it and know that it will last much longer than 10 years that buy something "modern" with a long warranty and hope that it would last.

[goodpsusearch]

Re: Are there caps that did not age and can be used as replacement for wet ones?

Second that

[Behemot]

Re: Are there caps that did not age and can be used as replacement for wet ones?

That's only their problem if they don't keep proof of purchase.

Some brands still offer registration upon purchase so you don't need the paper 8 years later. Anything else you got there?

[momaka]

Re: Are there caps that did not age and can be used as replacement for wet ones?

That's only their problem if they don't keep proof of purchase.

I agree.
But that doesn't solve the problem.

Anything else you got there?

Nope.

I just wish PSU manufacturers offered basic 250-300 Watt PSUs with good caps and no APFC or any other complex circuits. If they did, I'd put one in just about every PC that doesn't demand high power. But they don't, so I am stuck with refurbing OEM units.

Ever wonder why early OEM PSUs with Japanese caps from the Pentium, Pentium II, and Pentium 3 era are still good? It's precisely because they are very simple. And with good caps, it's no surprise most of them would make it to 20 years and more.

[Behemot]

Re: Are there caps that did not age and can be used as replacement for wet ones?

They can not because international norms which dictate harmonic suppression above 90 W or something like that (maybe 120 W?).

[momaka]

Re: Are there caps that did not age and can be used as replacement for wet ones?

They can not because international norms which dictate harmonic suppression above 90 W or something like that (maybe 120 W?).

Nothing about harmonic suppression. Just a (western) European directive with stricter PFC requirements. (Though in it's defence, I do partially agree with it, as many small towns/villages in Europe usually only have a few large step-down transformer stations in the whole town. Then you have thick wires with 220/230/240V lines running to all the buildings all across town. So large inductive and capacitative loads do tend to cause problems in those places. In the US it's different, because the wires running on our standard wooden poles are usually at several kiloVolts. Residential areas typically have one step-down, pole-mounted transformer per 3-4 houses on average. Thus, the losses from inductive and capacitative loads are not that bad.)

Anyways, no one says PSU manufacturer's can't make PSUs with passive PFC and still meet the European PFC requirements. But I'm sure APFC is probably cheaper over PPFC, hence why no one makes PPFC PSUs anymore.

[Behemot]

Re: Are there caps that did not age and can be used as replacement for wet ones?

Nobody wants PFC, the norm specifies harmonics (harmonic distortion) suppression (though only indirectly and I have not yet found the actual technical specification of what is allowed). It is tied together though.

[momaka]

Re: Are there caps that did not age and can be used as replacement for wet ones?

Here's what I found:
http://www.ops-ecat.schneider-electr...usg=&dwnl=true
According to the article, harmonic distortion seems to matter the most only for big office buildings with lots of PCs and data centers. But even then, it mentions (page 20) that you are unlikely to run into a scenario of Neutral overloading in an office building, because there are also other (more linear) loads connected to the 3-phase power that will overall "drown" the harmonic distortion.

Thus, it looks like the power companies and/or lawmakers are just being cheapskates and screwing you all with these dumb directives/requirements. And cheap bastards that don't want to install proper oversized neutral lines.

Meanwhile in the US, most residential areas only have a center-tapped 2-phase service derived from a single-phase pole-mounted traffo. Hence, residential areas in the US don't have much to worry about when it comes to harmonic distortion.

[Behemot]

Re: Are there caps that did not age and can be used as replacement for wet ones?

I guess that's why guy wrote me asking if 1 Vp-p distortion coming from couple high-end PSUs with PF of 0.99+ is normal just this week, cause it is making their solid-state relays just a couple meters away NOT WORK (keeping them constantly ON I think is the problem). And that was only like fifth harmonic (about 500 kHz). Harmonics around MHz range or even higher (hundreds MHz/GHz) just as low as 1 Vp-p will pretty much screw your sensitive radio devices or precisious lab instruments. Why do you think that when they measure RFI on some devices, they turn every SMPS inside the well-isolated room OFF and switch to bateries?

Seriously, you have no idea what mess this can do.

[Stefan Payne]

Re: Are there caps that did not age and can be used as replacement for wet ones?

So those 10 years warranties are BS too. Not in the sense that the PSUs won't last that long (most probably will) nor that the manufacturers won't honor them, but mostly because people usually won't bother to send a PSU back after that many years.

Yes, absolutely. And its only done by the bigger companys.
So they throw money at the market to push smaller companys, that can't afford 10 years warranty out of it.

And it is indeed PR-Marketing Bullshit, where they hope that most of the users won't return it after it fails.

And be honest, who keeps the receit of a device that cost just a 100 bucks or so for 10 years or more?! Nobody does that. And in 10 years, many people move once...

And with the recent change in specification (Intel Design Guide 1.4) you can throw away any PSU you can buy today anyway (probably)...