recent speaker problem

[ciscokid]

I had an electrlytic capacitor blow up inside one of my loudspeakers. This particular cap was part of the midrange crossovers. It really made a mess. The fuzz you see is from the fiberfill. I know I could have desoldered the cap and just replaced it, but the replacement crossover was only $65 for the assembly from Polk Audio so I went that route. The speakers are RT2000s. I've heard of these caps going insode guitar amps but never thought it would happen to one of my stereo speakers! I mean, who ever heard of re-capping speakers?

http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a142/sweetvalleyfarm/cap1.jpg

http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a142/sweetvalleyfarm/cap2.jpg

[Master Splinter]

There was a bit of a problem with electrolytic caps - some companies from Taiwan started making them with an electrolyte formula stolen from another manufacturer...but they didn't get it quite right, so there was an impressive number of failures (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague).

So yes, they do go bad, but they aren't that hard to diagnose or replace.

[chrisp]

With reference to the picture of the circuit board in the first post, having the capacitor near two power resistors isn't the most sensible PCB layout for optimum capacitor life :rolleyes:

If you are going to rebuild it - and you have the room - it might be a good idea to put the replacement capacitor on the rear of the board to protect it from the heat from the resistors.

[watson]

G'day People,
How about we keep it to Capacitors..instead of a slanging match??
Just a suggestion.