On Mon, 20 Jul 2015, Rich Alderson wrote:
On Sat, 18 Jul 2015, Peter Coghlan wrote:
Rich Alderson <ri...@livingcomputermuseum.org> wrote:
It is generally a good idea to re-form electrolytic capacitors in
power supplies, and to bench check the power supplies (under some
kind of load) before actually applying power to the whole unit.
It is always a good idea to replace electrolytic capacitors in power
supplies. The rest of the advice is sound.
Can you please clarify if this statement represents the policy of the
Living Computer Museum or is it something more personal? Perhaps some
qualification or a re-phrasing would be useful as it does not appear to
make sense as it stands?
This is the policy of Living Computer Museum. It is based on the
cumulative experience of multiple very senior electrical engineers[1]
doing restorations here, in conjunction with industry white papers with
tables of decay rates for the aluminum electrolytics that indicate that,
*no matter what*, they lose capacitance over time, until c. 14 years
from manufacturer date they are at 10% of rating.
[...]
I think you may have seen or participated in some of the many
discussions we have had on this topic on this list? In light of these
discussions, I find it hard to see how a categorical statement such as
this one could be justified.
Since the proponents of this practice make categorical statements with
no evidence that they want to listen to reasoned explanations, I long
ago gave over trying to convince them, and simply respond when someone
makes a statement to a newbie which will result in frustration and
failure for the unfortunate recipient of this advice.
Rich,
Do you happen to have a list of whitepapers and/or links on hand? I too am
getting tired of repeating the same thing over and over and compiling this
sort of information in a single location might be helpful. Buried in my
own archives I have quite a few papers and datasheets in pdf format, but
they are all mixed in with everything else so finding them would be quite
a challenge.
