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Registered Member #14
Joined: Thu Feb 02 2006, 01:04PM
Location: Prato/italy
Posts: 383
10000uF 16V capacitor explosion on a amplifier power converter (from 12V to +/-20V). THe amp and the converter was cased in a old pc SMPS carcass. When the capacitor explode the smoke and vapours where blown by by the cooling fan, exiting from tom and making a nice vortex effect. The amplifier was still working whell during failture, so i disconnected the power and replaced the capacitor (after cleaning the insides of the amp from electrolite paper, luck that it impacted on a plastic wall, avoiding short circuits).
Registered Member #146
Joined: Sun Feb 12 2006, 04:21AM
Location: Austin Tx
Posts: 1055
Go here:
Download BigDRSSTC_HQ.
First there is a failure of the ceramic cap on the RCD snubber (500V ceramic doesnt stand up to 900VDC). This causes a shoot-through of the half-bridge section, with an explosive 1400J behind it. Ive had other similar failures, but Terry caught this one on video .
Registered Member #477
Joined: Tue Jun 20 2006, 11:51PM
Location: Seattle, WA
Posts: 546
I think the "hidden message" of this thread is NOT to avoid situations which might lead to "spectacular failures", but rather to always have a camera rolling whenever doing anything HV-related
Personally, I wish I'd had a camera rolling on many of my trips to visit local Tesla coiling buddies, one of whom has tried many a time to build his own capacitors. He's relentless, which given the number of "spectacular failures" he's experienced, is pretty incredible. His last crack at this, which involved a really handsome-looking rolled capacitor, produced a twenty-foot-high (literally!) geyser of mineral oil almost the instant power was applied. He does most of his coil work in a large warehouse, so geysers of oil can get that high without hitting anything, and have done so in the past.
On a previous trip, I brought my Maxwell 37667 cap along and we blew it to pieces. None of these spectacles has been caught on tape, unfortunately. Sigh...the lessons we *don't* learn from our mistakes!
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Most spectacular failures
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