Guess the (Former) Capacitance Puzzle [SOLVED!]

RE: Guess the (Former) Capacitance Puzzle [SOLVED!]

anniel747 — Fri, 07 Apr 2023 21:24:16 GMT

15µF 63V

RE: Guess the (Former) Capacitance Puzzle [SOLVED!]

c4m4ch01 — Fri, 31 Mar 2023 20:11:10 GMT

Well I will give a shot on this. For the voltage I think it will be half of the maximum reverse range and because the explosion was not too small in the video, it may have a decent capacity but not too much (because the diameter of the capacitor seems to be not to large), so maybe 100uF/16V.

RE: Guess the (Former) Capacitance Puzzle [SOLVED!]

baldengineer — Fri, 31 Mar 2023 17:34:37 GMT

Amazingly, no one has guessed the correct combination yet...

RE: Guess the (Former) Capacitance Puzzle [SOLVED!]

gordonmx — Fri, 31 Mar 2023 05:09:44 GMT

Based on the estimated dimensions of the capacitor, my guess is 68uf, 25V

RE: Guess the (Former) Capacitance Puzzle [SOLVED!]

Anthocyanina — Thu, 30 Mar 2023 23:55:26 GMT

the hint completely gives it away. it is 763 charachters, not counting the smiley face, and it's 143 words. If we divide 763 by143, we get 5.342, the voltage rating is very easy to find out, as it was posted on the 28th of the third month, we subtract 3 from 28 and get 25 volts. now, back to the capacitance, that first line is 12 words long, and if we multiply that by 5.342, we get 64.104, but aha! you say it was blown with a reverse voltage, so we take the first two digits backwards and we get 46, now we can add that to 64, and we get 110, so we find the closest commercial rating and we get 100 uF! which is the only reasonable capacitance it could have had! so the capacitor was 100uF 25v, just like my capacitance when using a tinfoil electrode on my head to come up with this undeniably flawless analysis [emoticon:bfea11b94cc048458ee2c01f963db38d]

RE: Guess the (Former) Capacitance Puzzle [SOLVED!]

CargoCultScientist — Wed, 29 Mar 2023 00:25:05 GMT

Hey @baldengineer, that's an interesting puzzle you've got there! Based on the information provided and the video, I would like to venture a guess on the former capacitance and voltage rating of the capacitor.

Using the dimensions given by @wolfgangfriedrich, I noticed that the capacitor looks similar to the size of common electrolytic capacitors rated around 47µF. Considering the hint about the capacitor blowing with a reverse range of -10 to -32 volts, I would assume the capacitor had a voltage rating of around 35V, providing some margin to handle slight overvoltage situations in normal use.

So, my guess is that the former capacitance and voltage rating of the capacitor is 47µF and 35V.

In any case, this is a great reminder of the importance of proper handling and polarity considerations when working with polarized capacitors. Thanks for sharing this entertaining and educational puzzle!

RE: Guess the (Former) Capacitance Puzzle [SOLVED!]

baldengineer — Tue, 28 Mar 2023 01:53:02 GMT

So... uh... minor update. No one has guessed correctly yet. So, I added a hint.

RE: Guess the (Former) Capacitance Puzzle [SOLVED!]

embeddedguy — Mon, 27 Mar 2023 06:10:05 GMT

2.2 uF and 20V capacitor it is[emoticon:0e469978eb8947d18b9c41123db3725a]

RE: Guess the (Former) Capacitance Puzzle [SOLVED!]

dougw — Fri, 24 Mar 2023 19:13:40 GMT

I'm not in the running to guess but here are some thought processes around how I might guess:

Electrolytics one has lying around would have a standard voltage rating like 6.3, 16, 25 35, 63, 100 etc

Generally large value capacitors might have lower voltage ratings to try and keep then small.

"Small" electrolytics like this one wouldn't need to be lower than 35V so figure 35 or 63V, anything higher is a bit specialized to have lying around. So most likely 35V.

Again the value is likely to be a very common one like 6.8uf or 10uf. It is a bit on the long end of the spectrum so the estimate might be the higher value.

You can get a good estimate of the dimensions of the cap from the video, comparing it to known clip dimensions.

You can look up standard caps with those dimensions and a 35V rating to find likely values.

You might also consider the violence of the explosion - it was catastrophic but not immediate, maybe this indicates a thicker dielectric (higher voltage, lower capacitance part)

Have fun drawing your own conclusions...[emoticon:fbd079a1c4f748c5a234faee215de9cc]

RE: Guess the (Former) Capacitance Puzzle [SOLVED!]

misaz — Fri, 24 Mar 2023 17:18:49 GMT

I guess high capacity and low voltage rating: 220 uF and 6.3V.

RE: Guess the (Former) Capacitance Puzzle [SOLVED!]

strb — Wed, 22 Mar 2023 21:15:54 GMT

What a beautiful explosion! I love it! [emoticon:d6dd260102fd406884fc96b8bc59760b]
Looking back at your video on passives here you sayed what values you don't often use, so to me it seems right to shame some of those unused caps by doing so [emoticon:752f32bcc91d4a448db162742a877a4a] Looking at form factor I would say 47uF 25V.

Very fun quiz indeed!

RE: Guess the (Former) Capacitance Puzzle [SOLVED!]

me_Cris — Wed, 22 Mar 2023 19:12:17 GMT

It's not a big capacitor, 10µF at 16-63V, he used a breadboard in the end, which didn't catch fire. I say 10µF/35V, somewhere in the middle values.
I feel like a gambler, although it has never worked for me.

RE: Guess the (Former) Capacitance Puzzle [SOLVED!]

dougw — Wed, 22 Mar 2023 13:53:01 GMT

I have some 100uf non-polarized electrolytic capacitors. I wonder what their internal structure is like.

RE: Guess the (Former) Capacitance Puzzle [SOLVED!]

Gough Lui — Tue, 21 Mar 2023 22:48:53 GMT

Just looking around my toolbox, it could be 1uF/63V ... perhaps 10uF/16V. What a shame it doesn't look like a reputable branded capacitor ...

- Gough

RE: Guess the (Former) Capacitance Puzzle [SOLVED!]

ralphjy — Tue, 21 Mar 2023 21:54:20 GMT

Just for fun, I'll take a guess - sort of like "Price is Right"... It is a long skinny one, so I'd guess 5mm diameter by 11 or 12mm long. Based on conservative voltage rating and typical use cases being 3.3 - 15V, I'd guess 25V. And I'd typically have 10, 33, or 100uF for an electrolytic in the parts bin. So, I'm going to guess 10uF@25V for the relatively small explosion [emoticon:752f32bcc91d4a448db162742a877a4a].