TIL a dead capacitor can look perfectly fine

Spent 3 hours chasing a no-power issue on a Samsung TV last Wednesday, checked every fuse and voltage rail twice. Finally pulled the power board and tested a capacitor that looked brand new no bulging or leaking, but it read 0 capacitance on my meter. Anyone else ever get burned by a component that looked good but was totally dead?

4 comments

4 Comments

cameron_hernandez691mo ago

Honestly, found a dead resistor looking totally fine once, drove me nuts for days.

robinp891mo ago

Yeah, those hidden failures are the worst... multimeter saved my sanity there.

daniel_cooper341mo ago

Multimeter's the first thing I grab now. Saves pulling half the board apart for nothing.

fionam1117d ago

See I push back a little on that. Half the time my problem's been a cracked solder joint you can barely see but the multimeter picks it up fine so yeah it saves time. But if you're not careful you can end up chasing ghosts with continuity readings that don't mean much because the circuit's still powered down. @robinp89 I've had a cap that looked perfect but was completely dead and the multimeter told me nothing useful about it until I replaced it on a hunch. So I grab the meter second or third thing myself. Gotta look first with your eyes before you start poking leads around.