Spare 200V Electolytic Caps

[jmohr58]

Hi All,
With the popularity of the CFL bulbs these days, when one goes bad,
which seems is just as often as the old incandescents.

Don't just throw them away, they are easy to pop open (Please be careful that you don't cut yourself on the glass tube if it breaks) and inside you will find one Radial 200V Electrolytic Cap in the range of 10, 15 or 22uF with long leads. Usually a small choke/inductor in the size of 1.55mH and some other various parts. Different Brands use different part onfiurations.

It's kind of a crap-shoot whether you will always get good usable parts.
But they are in there. And you never know when you could need one, like when you just stuck your last new one in the circuit, the kids are crying, your wife is yelling at you and the new one gets inserted reverse polarity. You solder it in real quick, put the fire in your life out, come back to the bench frustrated. You thought you double checked polarity before, but forget to, flip the switch and you know - Poof!!! Electrolytic Confettii, the cap housing ricocheting off the ceiling and hopefully nothing worse.
Be Safe!

[VacuumVoodoo]

Don't break the glass if you don't want to sniff mercury vapor. So much for eco friendly stuff....

[jmohr58]

Kind of like the production, transportation and environment costs for producing a Prius.
The Hummer causes less damage, but with the unnecessary over-price of fuel these days you can't afford to fill it.
Don't you feel like you just got mugged when you fill up now!

[Colossal]

Don't break the glass if you don't want to sniff mercury vapor. So much for eco friendly stuff....

Yeah, they are not the friendliest bulbs. But every mercury vapor, metal halide, and standard fluorescent lamp has mercury in them. More mercury is dumped into the atmosphere burning coal to run inefficient tungsten filament lamps than the combined mercury in all of these CF lamps. Fortunately, compact fluorescent lamps are really just a transitional technology and LED lamps (in MR16, PAR 38, PAR 30 formats, etc) are already hitting the shelves. I've been running compact fluorescent lamps in my household for about 10 years. I take them with me when I move and am now starting to transition over to LED.

I drove a Prius for 7 years and while they are altruistic from the environmental point of view, they are a dismal investment, even with the savings in gas. I decided not to get another one as Toyota raised the price (instead of lowering them!!) because demand was so good. So I question their motives to save the world instead of just profiting from it. My wife and I are a one-car household so our carbon footprint is a bit lower so I feel ok about doing my part.

[Cliff Schecht]

It's kind of a crap-shoot whether you will always get good usable parts.
But they are in there. And you never know when you could need one, like when you just stuck your last new one in the circuit, the kids are crying, your wife is yelling at you and the new one gets inserted reverse polarity. You solder it in real quick, put the fire in your life out, come back to the bench frustrated. You thought you double checked polarity before, but forget to, flip the switch and you know - Poof!!! Electrolytic Confettii, the cap housing ricocheting off the ceiling and hopefully nothing worse.
Be Safe!

I've never soldered an electrolytic backwards in an amp and I've gone through hundreds of them by now. I have, however, been short handed and needed one in a snap. Old PC power supplies, preferably with low hours, are good for 400V caps usually and are much safer to pry apart.

Nowadays I keep a big collection of electrolytics around that I know are good. Ham radio guys always keep stuff like this around and that's where I get most of my older parts from. I guess I lucked out in that my dad is a ham too .

[jmohr58]

I have never wired a cap backward either, although in Tech school another student did and when it blew he fell off his stool. Didn't hurt him, just a shock of the noise etc.
And I wasn't trying to imply people aren't careful or meaning to step on anyones toes. I know the people that work around lethal voltage equiptment do double and triple check thier work. I do also.
It was just a whimsical for example scenario.
And a souce of a part if you happen to be out and it just happens to be the size and value you need.
Sorry if I offended anyone.

[XgamerGt03]

A lot of items today have really high value caps that are pretty good quality. If you can find a place that has a lot of older computer power supplies they are just going to throw away you can get two or three 200+ volt caps at a time from those. Usually these are in a totem pole configuration.

Most power tool battery chargers have the same thing. Just about anything with a "universal" input voltage has a number of caps on the input that are worth the time to get out. I can get between 4 and 10 caps out of most of these types of chargers.

[Structo]

Hehehehe, we used to wire electrolytics at the end of a 120vac line when we were kids.

We ran the wire out beside my house where there was a trail.
I had a coffee can to put them in to keep the shrapnel at a minimum and when somebody came by, closed the switch and BAM!
As loud or louder than a firecracker.

I was a bad boy...

[jmohr58]

Yes,
Power supplies out of pc's have the caps, toridial coils, chokes/inductors, heat sinks, diodes. A power switch, EIC connector usually with a voltage selector, maybe a good fan and with some nibblers you can even use the housing as a project box. And usually a fair amount of 20 AWG 300V wire.
As long as it doesn't need to be a very long wire run.
Good parts and not so good parts.
Sometimes you find parts you can use.
Or as Structo points out.
Parts for fun when its a boring day.