Capacitor Help !!!

How do you know it's duff ?

My guess is that it's 470uF but you need a voltage rating as well.

What diameter is it ?

MK

Hi John,  Michael is correct to question whether your component has failed as it is not a likely failure point. Most of the time these only fail as a result of voltage problems in the circuit which would entail other components as well. Convention would indicate as Michael stated that it is a 470 uF. You can estimate the voltage by tracing the leads back to Vcc or to a regulator to see what voltages are involved and then give yourself some extra voltage for tolerance. If nothing else the voltage of the laptop battery would indicate the max system voltage that is likely to be involved. I looked on a bunch of my salvage boards to see if I could find anything with similar markings but all of my components had a voltage where yours has the ELA.

John

Hi John - I did a little more research. Check out this Panasonic Data sheet.  http://www.farnell.com/datasheets/1676921.pdf  According to this "E LA" might indicate that it is a 25V and is part of the LA series.

Good Luck John

Well done John W,  I thought the number looked a bit familiar but I gave up when a Farnell search on ELA failed me.

MK

Thank you all for all the help. Much better than I was able to do on my own. Appreciated.

If you look at the top of the cap you will see it seems to be stressed upward, this is a sure sign it is failing and the internal chemicals are gassing and popping the lid. This is a safety feature to prevent it from exploding. It most lightly has been running too hot and is drying out

if this one is suffering, it is quite possible others are also

I couldn't find much on it, but we should be able to reason a few specifications.

• 470 uF is large, and likely means this capacitor is involved in a power supply circuit. Luckily for us this means the tolerance is probably loose, so when you order a new one the tolerance shouldn't matter.
• If it's on a motherboard, then the maximum voltage in would be 12V. Now, there could be a booster somewhere on the board, but the investigation leading to the 25V tolerance is likely correct since the computer power supply doesn't supply more than 12 Volts.
• Bulging electrolytic capacitors are a problem as equipment ages, so it's not surprising. As Peter mentioned you should peruse the board for more bad capacitors as there are likely more.

Not really sure on diameter. I know these are measured in metric, I'm in the states and can only provide our standard inch. I will have to see if I can find a measuring device that is small enough. When I do, I will provide you that information.

I take it duff meaning blown? The top is bowed out instead of being flat. Rounded, or bubbled out so to say.

thx