stellarola wrote:
How could you tell which capacitor needed to be changed? I'm just curious, because I'm about to change some caps on one of my monitors.
When caps start to die, they often buldge at the top end. Sometimes they'll even break open, and start leaking the electrolytic goo inside (usually a horrible yellow-brown "baby-poo" colour).
If you do work on a chassis for any reason, always take an extra 10 minutes or so to scan the board very closely for bulging caps. And if you replace them, make sure you use good quality ones that are rated at higher temperature levels. They only cost a few cents more than the cheapy ones, but are well worth it.
Heat and stress are the two biggest killers of caps, so if you find you're replacing them often, look for signs that some other part of the pcb is not working as it should, and consider adding some fan-forced cooling to your cab.
Be careful when replacing the really big caps on your chassis! My Kortek chassis has on big one near the mains power input. This filters the input voltage, and can often contain lethal charges even for hours/days after power off. If you do replace this guy, make sure you discharge it properly before touching it.
BadCaps.net is a good resource to help you locate bad caps, and what the best way to replace them is:
http://www.badcaps.net/
And if possible, try to have someone with you who knows what they are doing for at least the first time you play with replacing caps (or discharging monitors too). Preferably someone with much experience who's done it at least a few times before.
some monitors discharge themselves i think. I'm going to have to pop off the anode to get the pcb chassis out.. so i don't want to take risks.
ok I discharged the monitor (I think it discharged itself from being powered off).. fixed the problem also, now it is working again! There was just 1 little capacitor that needed changing..
