John Larkin
Guest
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 Posted:
Fri Feb 11, 2005 6:11 am Post subject:
Re: Electrolytic capacitors and reliability |
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On Thu, 10 Feb 2005 17:41:30 -0500, "Charles Schuler"
<charleschuler@comcast.net> wrote:
| Quote: | It's interesting to track the reliability of electronics from the
era of the TRF AM receiver up until now. This spans about 75 years. Many
significant gains have been made, but there is at least one big fly in the
ointment. In my observation, the biggest fly is the electrolytic capacitor.
I fully realize how small modern products must be and know about switch mode
power supplies and do appreciate that electrolytics (including tantalums)
are the only game in town.
Just thinking that if someone could solve the reliability problems, they
would make quite an impact!
There is an interesting story now circulating about a stolen electrolyte
formula (which was missing some crucial additives) and the resultant
premature death of many computer motherboards. There seems to be a need for
new ideas.
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Polymer aluminum caps are better, in that they don't dry out. But so
far they come in smaller sizes, not the beasts needed in power
supplies. You could do a switcher with an L-C phase shifter on the
front end (to make polyphase AC to drive the input bridge) using film
caps, or even just use a ton of film caps, but it would be big and
expensive.
But since we throw away everything every few years anyhow...
John |
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