replace the 400v line caps?

[theodoof]

I've managed to repair a few monitors (yay), and I have four left to fix (yarg).

My question is: when someone who is presumably knowledgeable say "replace all the caps" (in a power supply, fer instance) is that meant to include the big 400v AC line cap? Do those fail often?

(I mean, do they fail as often as other caps that fail often on boards that often have often-failing caps on 'em?)
(That last bit doesn't entirely make sense, but I hope you know what I mean .)


Thing is, I'm hoping I can keep the parts count low when I put in an order, since I don't have any income lately.

[etnietering]

Re: replace the 400v line caps?

Well they CAN go bad, there have been several accounts here where the 400v cap has gone bad, but it is much less frequent than the output side caps. Personally, I've only ever worked on 1 monitor, and all it's output caps were bad, but the 400v input cap was fine. In most of the ATX power supplies I've worked on, all the secondary side caps can be bulging/leaking, and the 200v caps (2 in series makes a 400v cap) were fine, and they were fuhjyyu!

So basically, it's rare, but it does happen. Plan accordingly. Good luck!

[seanc]

Re: replace the 400v line caps?

The input caps are usually fine.
I had one Shuttle power supply, where the primary and all secondary caps were bad, with the exception of 2 470uf 16v.