Re: RCA RT2500 with bad caps?

None of those caps look blown, cracked, or leaking.

Usually caps don't fail unless there is a manufacturing defect or over-current. Over-current will happen due to a power surge or voltage regulator malfunction. If a surge were the case, you would most likely have damage to the power transformer and possibly the rectifiers. A small surge could damage to the components enough to operate outside of their designed ratings which could lead to erratic behavior.

Most likely there is a problem with the main power relay or the voltage...

Re: Linksys WPS54G with mystery caps?

>>Yes, I enjoy your descriptive ramblings...
Oh you're such a tease

>>Okay. Just wanted to be sure you didn't stick a "Radio Shack Special" cap in there.
Silliness I do declare! I haven't found myself in a Radio Shack in years. I would rather dig through scraps or wait for a shipment from Digikey or Mouser. I try to stick similar parts from similar types of circuits.. Power supplies to power supplies, RF to RF, etc.

>>Glad you got it fixed. Hope it serves you well.
...

Re: Linksys WPS54G with mystery caps?

Oh me oh my, such silliness has come from me. I got my micro and pico farad's mixed up. It's been a long week for me. Thank you for point that out.

I don't have photos available which is why I tried to be as descriptive as I can. I could always tear the power supply apart again and setup some shots.

Thanks for the mentioning the ESR, and yes, I did use a low ESR cap from a similar circuit as well.

Thanks for the input! Each time I do something, I'm always learning. I love to share information just as much...

Re: Linksys WPS54G with mystery caps? [RESOLVED]

It was one bad capacitor in the power brick. Here is what I did.

The hard part is to open the shell. I placed it on one side and used a really sturdy knife, placing it on the seam in the middle of the device, and giving it a good solid smack with my hand. What will happen is it should make a small incision in the plastic. Be careful not to go too far in or you could damage components. My knife went in maybe 1/8", just enough to break the plastic. I worked forward toward the AC plug (not many full height components...

Re: Linksys WPS54G with mystery caps?

The regulator tested out fine, seemed unlikely that could have been the problem. Turns out that it was the power supply itself. I had a duplicate that I replaced the barrel on and it works like a champ. I will tear the power brick apart and try to fix, probably a bad cap or two in there. Only time will tell... ^.^

This is my second time typing this, apparently I accidentally hit a key to close the firefox tab thus losing my previous post... Here we go again:

I was given a Linksys WPS54G print server. Upon plugging it in, I'm getting inconsistent results. Usually it ends up with the USB LED being illuminated then doing dim then either going out completely or next to no illumination. The power LED never illuminates.

The power supply is 5V @ 2A. I measure 5V under no load so I tried this adapter in a Linksys VoIP adapter and that seemed to turn on so I'm assuming it's the print...