Big surplus capacitors: are they reliable?

[s&r]

I've a bunch of big electrolytic capacitors I bought
new many years ago at a surplus market and never used.

since I've no equipment to test their high capacitance
(they go from 25,000 to 110,000 microfarads, 25 to 60 Vcc),
besides simple discharge timings, I wanted to test their
reliability before using them.
I measured the current they draw from a 12 Vcc power
supply after being fully charged and got values of 150
microamperes or less.
Could I trust these capacitors? Are there better
methods to test if they're still usable without risk?


Thanks in advance.

 

[Watson A.Name - 'Watt Sun']

I've a bunch of big electrolytic capacitors I bought
new many years ago at a surplus market and never used.

since I've no equipment to test their high capacitance
(they go from 25,000 to 110,000 microfarads, 25 to 60 Vcc),
besides simple discharge timings, I wanted to test their
reliability before using them.
I measured the current they draw from a 12 Vcc power
supply after being fully charged and got values of 150
microamperes or less.
Could I trust these capacitors? Are there better
methods to test if they're still usable without risk?

You ought to do a bit of electrolytic capacitor reforming. They
should be gradually brought up to their rated voltage.

Thanks in advance.

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[Pieter Hoeben]

I've a bunch of big electrolytic capacitors I bought
new many years ago at a surplus market and never used...

Connect them all to a power supply with a current limiting resistor
like 10k, and let them stay there for a week. Then they will be
formatted. Nowadays those caps are so good that there will
not be much problems. You can see if the formatting has ended by
measuring the current. It will get lower and lower. Once it stops you
reached the leakeage current.

Regards,

Pieter Hoeben

 

[Allodoxaphobia]

Connect them all to a power supply with a current limiting resistor
like 10k, and let them stay there for a week. Then they will be
formatted. Nowadays those caps are so good that there will
not be much problems. You can see if the formatting has ended by
measuring the current. It will get lower and lower. Once it stops you
reached the leakeage current.

Regards,

Pieter Hoeben

Being that they are old capacitors, should
one "format" them FAT-16, or try to "FORMAT" them FAT-32?

 

[Watson A.Name - 'Watt Sun']

Being that they are old capacitors, should
one "format" them FAT-16, or try to "FORMAT" them FAT-32?

B-b-but what if they're a CD? Then it's ISO-9660?


--
@@F@r@o@m@@O@r@a@n@g@e@@C@o@u@n@t@y@,@@C@a@l@,@@w@h@e@r@e@@
###Got a Question about ELECTRONICS? Check HERE First:###
http://users.pandora.be/educypedia/electronics/databank.htm
My email address is whitelisted. *All* email sent to it
goes directly to the trash unless you add NOSPAM in the
Subject: line with other stuff. alondra101 <at> hotmail.com
Don't be ripped off by the big book dealers. Go to the URL
that will give you a choice and save you money(up to half).
http://www.everybookstore.com You'll be glad you did!
Just when you thought you had all this figured out, the gov't
changed it: http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/binary.html
@@t@h@e@@a@f@f@l@u@e@n@t@@m@e@e@t@@t@h@e@@E@f@f@l@u@e@n@t@@

 

[Pieter Hoeben]

Being that they are old capacitors, should

B-b-but what if they're a CD? Then it's ISO-9660?

They are old, so probably C/PM. A ask Bill how to copy it to make
MSDos.

Pieter Hoeben

 

[Mark (UK)]

Could be Linear CDi, or CD Video even?