So I have an older Hifonics X1200.4, a 1200 watt, 4 channel car amplifier. Hifonics uses strictly chinese parts, and are made by Maxxsonics. They had a period where they were amazing, then went to shit, then back to amazing (albeit now super chinese). They aren't known for failing at all, they are made very well now. However, as I said they're made super cheap. So they have caps inside rated 2200uF 50V. The amp was used for about a year in HARSH conditions, I absolutely drove this amp way over the limit. However, in the car audio world, amps can get hot enough to burn the paint off of their chassis, this is normal for competition grade amplifiers.
Now I took it out of service about a year ago, fun was over. Couldn't bring myself to sell it though. So I came back to it, and it sounded a little funny. I opened the case, and... bloated caps? Not leaking (yet) but noticable bulge 5 out of 6! The brand of the caps is "R • M" (Yes, that s unicode). I've seen these in Logitech devices, never seen them fail like this though.
Is this natural for capacitors? If not, I'm just gonna assume it was because they're cheap. The amplifier also was run very hot while it was in service, if it was running for long periods, under high stress it could see temperatures above 160 degrees.
Now I took it out of service about a year ago, fun was over. Couldn't bring myself to sell it though. So I came back to it, and it sounded a little funny. I opened the case, and... bloated caps? Not leaking (yet) but noticable bulge 5 out of 6! The brand of the caps is "R • M" (Yes, that s unicode). I've seen these in Logitech devices, never seen them fail like this though.
Is this natural for capacitors? If not, I'm just gonna assume it was because they're cheap. The amplifier also was run very hot while it was in service, if it was running for long periods, under high stress it could see temperatures above 160 degrees.
Comment