Magic Blue Smoke » capacitor

Infrant/Netgear ReadyNAS NV+ PSU fails

MagicBlueSmoke — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 00:47:10 +0000

Top of PSU - the insulation on the inductor is not paper

Bottom of PSU

This is a PSU from a Infrant/Netgear ReadyNAS NV+ system. The PSU likely failed because of design problems instead of faulty components; the failure seems to be a common event on certain manufacturing batches.

Notable features on upper picture: 3 bulged capacitors, 1 inductor with burned insulation. Notable features on lower picture: signs of overheating, jumper wire in solder.

Credit: Swish from EFnet.

NEC ND-2510A DVD recorder

MagicBlueSmoke — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 00:09:24 +0000

Top of board showing destroyed SMD capacitors and inductors

Closeup of SMD parts

Bottom of board showing cracked IC

Closeup of burned IC

This started as a burning smell and extreme heat coming from the DVD drive, and ended up with what you see above. The PC power supply that powered the computer this drive was in failed some months after. Credit: stsm.

Xbox power supply failure damages pcb

MagicBlueSmoke — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 00:44:55 +0000

This appears to be an Xbox revision 1.1 where the power supply failure caused significant damage to the PCB. The vented capacitor in the picture is a 680uF/16V capacitor which shorted, damaged the FET, and led to the failure of the power plane. Ideally the power supply should sense failure conditions and shut down. The FET was a Philips 21N06. Credits: Ahmad Tabbouch of http://ultrakeet.com.au.

Dynapower DP-40205 with exploded FET

MagicBlueSmoke — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 00:02:07 +0000

DP-40205 top

Exploded FET

These pictures come from a Dynapower USA DP-40205 400W power supply. It appears the standby regulation failed and took out the FET pictured above and also the capacitor and resistor near the top of the fan. The exploded piece of the FET was rattling around the power supply when it was opened and the part that remained on the board was loose. It’s suspected the capacitor damage was from overvoltage when the regulator failed for unknown reasons. Credit: http://blog.kevtris.org/

MAG LT716s power supply fries after capacitors fail

MagicBlueSmoke — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 01:55:31 +0000

MAG LT716s front

MAG LT716s back

Closeup of fried FET

The capacitors in the first picture are failing as can be seen by their bulging. They are supposed to hold the electric charge for the inverter circuit using the 4511GM FET ICs shown above. Once the capacitor cannot hold its designed charge, the BIT3193 PWM controller in the middle of the bottom picture tells the FETs to try harder to maintain the output voltage on the capacitors. Apparently the controller had no protection for this type of scenario and drove the blown FET to the point that it melted the solder it was connected to the board with and damaged the top of the PCB. Credit: http://reboots.g-cipher.net/