Video of Blown Up Electrolytic Capacitor in Power Supply

For every technicians that repairs power supplies, one have to check or make sure that the main filter capacitor that you have took out have to be put back to its original location. Do not install it wrongly (positive to positive and negative to negative) otherwise when you switched on the power supply, the main filter capacitor will blow as shown in the video above. Worst case is that it even burnt the power supply board. The main filter capacitor usually rated at 220 microfarad to 680 microfarad from 200 volt to 400 volt. Again it depends on the designed of the computer power supply.

I still could recalled when i was starting to repair my first power supply many years back, i did made a mistake and caused one of the main filter capacitor blown but not as bad as the above video. The capacitor just opened up (didn't explode) at the top casing and releases a lot of smoke covering the whole technical department.

The smell was terrible and we quickly opened up all the windows and let the smoke out. I had learned my mistake and from that day onwards, whenever i install any big filter electrolytic capacitor, i'll completely make sure that the capacitors installed at the right location before i switch on the power supply.