SirNickity wrote:

I just replaced about 25 Nichicon caps on an Asus TUSL2 due to bulging. Brand on the cap nor the board makes any difference when it's from the cap plague era.

I recap and re-fan every PSU that isn't brand new as a matter of course. Motherboards, I am planning to start at the PII era and work my way out - up to P4 and back to my oldest 386 era stuff. It's worth the time and effort to keep things running safely. When I get done with that, I'll move on to re-lubricating floppy and optical head rails.

Comes with the territory.

Nichicon had a bad series crop up then as did NCC. Took some time for them to sort it out of the supply chain. Happens from time to time, but as a rule not.

Synaps3 wrote:

SirNickity wrote:

I just replaced about 25 Nichicon caps on an Asus TUSL2 due to bulging. Brand on the cap nor the board makes any difference when it's from the cap plague era.

I recap and re-fan every PSU that isn't brand new as a matter of course. Motherboards, I am planning to start at the PII era and work my way out - up to P4 and back to my oldest 386 era stuff. It's worth the time and effort to keep things running safely. When I get done with that, I'll move on to re-lubricating floppy and optical head rails.

Comes with the territory.

What kind of soldering iron/tip do you use for recapping?
This was my first time recapping and I just used two soldering irons at the same time. This wasn't a very good method and I still left a few questionable ones in. Is there a better way? (Maybe it's ubiquitous because I haven't spent much time researching the subject.)

I have a tip for my iron that is big and fat, and cut at an angle in the end. I tried replacing capacitors with a fine point solder and it is basically impossible. Thicker is much easier to work with.

Looks a bit like this one

I put a little pre-tin on the end, place the flat end of the tip on the cap lead, and then push the soldering wire into the lead of the capacitor. It's super easy and it only takes a few millimeters of solder wire for each end.

I keep my iron at 370c and it has worked really well so far.

I can definitely vouch for using a larger soldering iron tip. I bought a pack of different sized tips to use with my digital Hakko iron and I tried to use one of the tiny pointed ones for some SMD repairs and it is a nightmare. It just doesn't transfer enough heat into the part\board to work properly. I guess its possible the tips are just not made as well as the original Hakko tip, I'm not sure, I haven't tried any of the larger ones from the kit.