Great Source of A1200 / A600 caps and other retro items

[kreciu]

This guy was so helpful and went the extra mile when Royal Mail lost my order - he made sure I got another set so I can do the recap over Christmas. Link to eBay shop.

I was going to open topic about it. I hear/read EVERYWHERE about changing cap in our Amiga or in general "classic" computers.

WHY?

IF caps are not "bursting" they are fine. They all are rated for few thousand hours of use. My experience. I had LCD monitor and it had problems with start up. I found out this monitor had issues with caps. I opened monitor and... few caps were getting out of shape. I replaced  them and monitor works great last two years.

So, why to change caps "just in case"?

I have Color Classic on original caps, works like a dream. Should I replace caps? Same with my Amigas...

EDIT: Maybe it could be new topic...

[kreciu]

CAPs are usually rated for a 10 or so year life span. If they fail they might take out other components along the way. You don't want to be in the middle of something and smoke your Amiga.

...but if not used they should not have "life span affected". IMO.

With that being said. You need to check the age of the CAPs you are buying. You do not want to buy new-old stock. You want to buy good quality new CAPs from a reliable source.

I think it just because they are OLD but not use it will not make them BAD.

[kreciu]

OMG, really? Not even going to waste my time arguing with you, if you believe this so adamantly.  Am sure others will be along to point out the error of your ways, however.

:laughing:

I'm asking question. If you have answer, please provide.

From this what I know, capacitors age only when USED.

[kreciu]

No, all Amiga caps in all Amiga motherboards have well exceeded their life ratings.
Even if they are not leaking,they most likely have a reduced capacitance and/or may be completely bad.
These bad caps may not be filtering power coming in properly,or may allow noise or reduced volume on the audio etc.Dirty power can lead to random crashes and such.

I was thinking about capacitance decreasing in time. This is most convincing for me.

There is multiple types of caps... so called "solid" caps. Can I replace Amiga caps with any type (same specs)?

I would think that it should be fine? Why not to put there something what will last "for ever"? Since there are caps with no degradation?

[kreciu]

I hate to be one of those grumpy old men who says "search the forums", but seriously.  This question has been asked literally *hundreds* of times.

OK. I know, it was asked for SURE by someone. Problem is that I like to have conversation with PEOPLE.

In next 10 years, we will have answers in google.com for every single question you (I) can ask EVER. Should you close "forum" section and tell everybody "go and search google library"?

BOOOOOOOORING.

IMO there is value in conversation, interaction etc. it is called learning process. It is like with school. ALL what we teach was already ANSWERED (I'm teacher). So, do you think I will tell my students: Stop asking questions, go to google and read answers? There are there for sure.

Take it or leave it.

Just do it, and rest easier at night.

Most likely I will do it, but now I want to know "what is best" for my few Amigas...

[kreciu]

As I said, if you don't care to discuss something ignore the thread. Is post count so important that someone has to comment on every single thread when you aren't willing to discuss what the thread is about?  This site is going to die if everybody asking questions is told not to because they have already been asked.  In real life if someone asks you a question you don't tell him to go ask Joe the answer because you already answered it for him.  You answer the question again and move on.

This is especially true in case of Amiga. There is NO new hardware made so there is no new questions.

I had some break with Amiga, now I'm back at least for some time. I started looking at various Amiga forum and in general it is rather EMPTY. How we are going to attract anybody to Amiga when our forums will be dead/empty or you sent anybody who ask question to "archive" section of forum?

Technically I could ask this question about caps on any electronic related forum, but there is "something" about asking this question to Amiga users.

Also I DID some search before I asked this question and did not feel I got my answers.

When I re-cap my Amiga I will post picture, yes it is going to be ANOTHER BORING PICTURE of Amiga 1200 mobo with identical caps anybody can get of ebay.com. Wait! It is not going to be boring! IT IS MY AMIGA 1200 mobo!