a WIP photo, just finished replacing the caps I already had, now waiting for the rest to arrive:

The AT (left) psu was way easier to work with , the ATX is too crammed... not all caps are seated all the way to the pcb, some of my caps are slightly bigger - most notable the 2200uf one near the cables... meh
I also used silicone to glue together the caps on the ATX psu like the manufacturer had , just in case the cables start pushing them.

The 3 blue caps on the ATX psu are Vishay 220uf ones, AFAIK these are OK and originated from Philips... I hope they are ok 🤣

Nooo! Never apply glue! It limits air paths around the caps, transfers heat from hot parts to caps and is of little or no use at all..

There are many types of glue used in psus. The worst of all is the dark yellow / brown glue that turns black with age and heat and gets corrosive and conductive. That type of glue should be carefully removed from power supplies. The white glue is not dangerous but can turn psu repair / recap into a nightmare.

It is ok for caps not to touch the PCB. 99% of the time they are adequately secured by nearby caps/coils/cables. No reason to worry about that.

hmmm I used silicone (like it was used by the factory, you can see that brownish stuff touching the purple cable, it's actually aged transparent silocone) to "glue" the caps in one block like the original design... it's only used on top of them , 3 blobs to connect them all (also there is a blob connecting to a coil - again like the original design, I assume for vibration reasons?). They are not cemented into silicone , if that's the concern, the pic leaves lots to the imagination... I can remove it easily though, no problem.

Any comment on the Vishay caps? they ARE good, right?

edit:
Forgot to mention the fan on the heroichi atx psu... it was a high-rpm noisy one. It makes sense since right behind it there was the PFC block that is now removed completely. So I think I can install a quieter fan (~1800-2000rpm) and still be safe , I don't think a p1mmx setup will stress it that much. Thoughts?

keropi wrote:

Any comment on the Vishay caps? they ARE good, right?

Should be fine provided you chose a series with not too high or not too low ESR.

keropi wrote:

... I think I can install a quieter fan (~1800-2000rpm) and still be safe , I don't think a p1mmx setup will stress it that much. Thoughts?

You'll be OK, that system draws little power and the PSU will generate little internal heat (even less after removing the APFC coil).

@TELVM

hmm, will check the series tomorrow , they are supposed to be general purpose caps... will report later

You can use general purpose 105ºC for the bulk and for the tiny caps.

But for the secondary output filtering caps, including +5VSB, you want relatively low ESR caps (though not extremely low, as this may mess up what the feedback loop is 'tuned' to, say ESR no lower than about 0.015 ohms). Such as:

Chemicon LXY, LXZ, LXV, KY, KZE
Nichicon PW, PS, PM, PL, PJ, HE, HD
Panasonic FC, FK, FR, FM
Samxon RS
Sanyo WX
Rubycon ZL, ZLG, YXG, YXF

^ ah, thanks for that list - it will come handy in the future... 😀

but this does not apply to these 2 specific psus right? I posted this pic on the heroichi thread, all of them should be general purpose crappy caps

the AT one had allmost all rubycons , will check the series tomorrow

The 2 blue caps are TMR series, entry level low esr capacitors of a very bad capacitor manufacturer.

You can also use general purpose caps on -12V and -5v.

Definitely use EXCLUSIVELY low esr caps for 5vsb. Low esr caps is preferable for 3.3V, 5V and 12V too.

EDIT: No need to recap Rubycons 😀 😀

^ too late wave, every rubycon is gone now 🤣 ... still kept them though

Regarding the 2 blue ones:
the 2200uf one is replaced with KZH series chemicon cap
and the 1000uf one with a KYA series chemicon cap
So I think these are fine, right?

also the Vishay 220/16v caps I used on the Heroichi psu are 135 series, they seem general purpose ones to me but I might be wrong: http://sg.rs-online.com/web/p/aluminium-capacitors/0447822/

as a sidenote here are the series of all other caps I am using for these 2 psus:

0.68uf: some panasonic caps I ordered, not sure of the series
1uf, 2.2uf, 4.7uf, 47uf : chemicon KMG series
100uf: chemicon KY series or panasonic FC depending on voltage rating
330uf: KY series
470uf, 100uf, 2200uf, 3300uf: chemicon KZH series
and a single 22uf chemicon KMA capacitor

edit
bonus pic: the blobs 'o' support, yay or nay?
also removed the connectors I won't use on my p1 system - the extra 12v for a p4+ cpu and the old AT connector - this psu is specific for my babyAT p1 setup... still debating whether to remove a set of HDD molec connectors , 3 sets are too much for the system...

blue 2200uf is replaced with KZH chemicon => a bit too low ESR (0.017) but should be OK

blue 1000uf with a KYA chemicon => OK (KY would be better)

Vishay 220/16v 150 RMI => OK (ESR 0.117 / Ripple 555, same ratings as a Panasonic FC)

1uf, 2.2uf, 4.7uf, 47uf : chemicon KMG => should do for the tiny caps

100uf: chemicon KY or panasonic FC => OK

330uf: chemicon KY => OK

470uf, 100uf, 2200uf, 3300uf: chemicon KZH => a bit too low ESR but should be OK

and a single 22uf chemicon KMA => should do for a tiny cap

I'd remove all glue on sight.

If you're sure you're not gonna miss them, less wires = less clutter + better cooling 😀

@keropi

are you Greek too?

@TELVM

great, thanks once again for the info, it's valuable ! Also glad to see that the caps are OK for the most part , sadly where I live I need to rely on orders and I don't always get what I want (for example: no 2x680uf caps for me, seller decided to send me a 560+820 KMR set instead).
I tried the AT psu btw, seems to be working fine. Don't know if that ESR stuff will affect it. For the heroichi psu my uneducated guess is that it will be OK compared to the crap it had before as I doubt they even performed on specs anymore.

@wave
Yep, from Ioannina ... btw a friend is visiting Thessaloniki , any tips were to send him to get the elusive 680uf/250v caps?
Καλώς ήρθες!!!

It is very hard to get caps from stores in Greece. They sell Chinese crap and 99% of the times the caps are general purpose 105 C or even 85 C capacitors..

http://www.hlektronika.gr/forum/showthread.php?t=36439
Μπορεί να πάρει με τη σειρά τα μαγαζιά σε αυτό το λινκ, αλλά επειδή έχω ρωτήσει κι εγώ σχεδόν όλους, πολύ δύσκολα να βρει πάνω από 470uF 200V. Ειδικά 250V δεν έχουν πάνω από 100 - 220uF. Άρα το πανάκριβο rs είναι μονόδρομος εκτός αν σε βολεύει περισσότερο farnel, digikey (προσοχή με τελωνείο, είναι αμερικάνικο).
Μην αγοράζεις πυκνωτές από ebay, είναι σχεδόν πάντα μαιμού, φίλος και συνάδελφος από Αλεξανδρούπολη αγόραζε Sanyo από ebay και τελικά του έρχονταν fake πυκνωτές που δεν είχαν καμιά σχέση σαν χωρητικότητα και esr με αυτό που έγραφαν. Καλύτερα κινέζικοι πυκνωτές παρά fake Ιαπωνικοί. Τουλάχιστον οι κινέζικοι μέχρι να φουσκώσουν θα είναι μέσα στις προδιαγραφές. Ό,τι θες ρωτάς 😀
Κώστας

^ Yep, sadly all I can get locally are LeLon caps and the odd Jamicon. And nothing "crazy/specialized" , just common ones.
I have a friend in Athens that gets me these Chemicons from Fanos , other than that I don't know another source for quality stuff.
As for the Thessaloniki friend he says there are 2 big electronics stores close to each other, he'll try there...

btw almost all glue/silicone is gone, can't bother removing the small amount that is between the caps 🤣 🤣 🤣

Could you post a photo of the Rubycon caps you pulled out along with their series and uF V?

Those are valuable capacitors.

Δεν το ήξερα αυτό με το Φανό. Θα το έχω υπόψη μου! Πριν χρόνια είχα παραγγείλει από Ιωαννίδη (Μαρασλή, Χαριλάου) μεγάλους πυκνωτές για τροφοδοτικό: Panasonic 1000uF 200V γύρω στα 4-5 ευρώ τον έναν. Πέρσυ που ξαναρώτησα όμως μου είπαν ότι δε γίνεται...

^ yeah, those large chemicon caps costed 5-6eur each.

the rubys are these , easier to write them down:

0.68uf/50v MH
1uf/50v MH
2.2uf/50v MH
4.7uf/50v MH
47uf/25v MH
47uf/35v MH
470uf/25v CE W (85 degrees)
2200uf/10v YXB

I wonder how do the replacements fare compared to them?

I told him to let the japs soldier on in the AT seasonic, but Keropi seems to be in recap-happy mode. 😀

BTW, wave == goodpsusearch? 😉

Yeap! That would be me!

470uf/25v CE W (85 degrees) <-- That cap, I wouldn't reuse in a psu or similar.

The rest are good!

True true, TELVM recommended me to only replace that 1000uf CEHTR... but I decided to recap the whole thing and have it last until I am an old geezer.

The plan for these 2 psus is this:
I have 2 very good conditioned BabyAT towers. One I have modified to use an ATX PSU (modded the power-on/off button to be a momentary switch) and the other is stock for use with an AT psu.
The atx-tower hosts my p1mmx build which remained the same (except for soundcards) over the last 8+ years - it is highly unlikely I'll change the setup and I have spares of the exact same components.. So that setup gets the Heroichi PSU.
The AT tower will use the Seasonic AT psu (duh) and it will host either an exact same setup of my p1mmx build or a 486/100 system.

So both systems are not demanding power-wise IMHO, worst case scenario I use a K6 cpu and a voodoo2 card with the Heroichi setup. So I thought I'd fully recap both with quality caps and never mess with them again. I also thought that new caps should be better than 25+ years old ones since both are good quality. Didn't think that much about ESR stuff tbh, I thought it matter little in older psus/systems.

As a rule I never re-use used caps , no matter how good they are. I keep some for experiments though. Will ditch the WE C capacitor 😉

Once again though I have a question 🤣
Heroichi uses 2x680uf/200v caps in a way that they perform as a ~340uf/400 capacitor, correct? Would a single 330 or 390uf 450v capacitor work instead? Or we need 2 of them for other reasons?

You need both unfortunately.

Well, if you want to recap and forget them, then be sure to oil the fan bearing with motor oil or Singer sewing machine oil.