Yes, Caps DO blow up!
 

I bought an amp that had a blown cap. Should be an easy and cheap fix.

Just to illustrate that caps DO blow up. SO be VERY careful with them. I bet this small one (smaller round than a pencil, under .75" long) probably sounded like a fire cracker!

Imagine a 1 Farad blowing up. It would take your HAND off.

capacitors are hairy? :blink:

on a more serious note.. wonder what caused that one to explode?

I had a friend who had a 1 farad cap blow. He was connecting the battery terminal in the front, and boom, the cap blew in the back.

^ what kinda damage did that cause.. ?

Thats the cardboard insulator in there... Not hair... lol

I bet that cap made him poop his pants!

hey im new on capicitors, old system didnt need one, how can you prevent them from blowing

^^^ hook them up right

And charge them properly!

When charging a capacitor on first hookup you must use a resistor!

how i would i know whether or not i need a cap?

Nobody seems to agree on whether they even do their intended function. I doubt it would solve my dimming, though since I did the (not so) big 3 w/ scrap 8 gauge I can only detect dimming at idle or at ear damaging volumes.

hmm im not pushin too much power just the stocks and then 2 12s in parallel on a 600 watt kenwood

I was doing the same for a while. Until I upgraded I didn't really realise how crappy my mid base was. Now it blends beautifully; worth twice what it cost.

It was pretty bad. There was some liquid all over the trunk, and the rest of the car audio got effed up.

Sorry about this thread jack Ryan, but when connecting the cap, what is the trick to getting the display to light up? With me, sometimes I connect it and it lights up and stays working, then if I disconnect it for any reason, it wont work at all or maybe it will. A friend once told me there was a trick to getting the display, but I dont really know it.

what cap are you running?

that liquid is oil, to separate the plates that hold the current w/in the cap.

and yes.. wiring it backwards is like putting a pipe bomb in your trunk. Thats why most big caps have that little "turkey tester" thing that pops up when its going to blow. You see that... you run.

JBL is good people.

They got back with me already on the cap that blew. Now I need to just order the $0.25 part and replace it... lol

Im going to try Radioshack first. I doubt they have it though.

On the other hand I ordered $16 worth of parts from digi-key the other day and its here already!

I hope to have my frist repair job done by weekend!

ryan, whats the cap's numbers? i'll look right now

Edit: nvm, if you get this later then 9pm

Make sure you get a good quality cap. If you use a cheap brand they tend to dry out quicker and fail shortly there afterwards. You also might want to think about changing the other caps close to that one. When 1 cap goes they like to take others with them. Check the other ones around that one. If any of the tops of them are distorted replace it before applying power to it.
Although it looks like that one went fairly quickly so your probably alright just replacing that one. You should also try and figure out why that one blew violently like that. you may have the symptom and not the cause.
I replace caps almost daily on television power supplies.

Oops, sorry I forgot about this thread. I am running a 1.6 farad lanzar cap.

Given the caps proximity to the RCA input, its likely somebody had a line driver on this amp and applied to much voltage to the RCA input.

Thats my guess. These are only rated for 5v input. Ive seen line drivers to 13 volts.