Apparently, capacitors like this are prone to breaking in mechanical vibration / shock tests. Often, a bit of hot melt glue can prevent it happening again if the product is susceptible to this failure.
My AA battery charger started rattling after an encounter with some airport baggage handlers. Rather than plugging it in and hoping I decided to open it and check what was loose. Luckily I already have a set of bits for removing almost all types of tamper proof screws.
It turned out that the first smoothing capacitor had fallen off the PCB. Some quick work with a soldering iron and it was ready for use again.
Some of the design was ok, with good separation between the mains parts and the touchable parts. There is a plastic blade on part of the case that fits into the slot in the PCB. I am not so sure about the use of 400V rated capacitors directly after the bridge rectifier though.
Well.... readers of my blog The Geekette and some of the IET volunteers that I've worked with can tell you all about my fascination with making and fixing stuff!
So far I fixed my old washing machine three times, my old tumble drier twice, my old gas boiler twice, re-wired a de-fuzzer, a set of battery powered lights and some solar lights that were broken, and taken apart a solar ornament to identify why its not working (although it's still in pieces at the moment as I need a better soldering iron...) AND used to tinker with my old Austin Metro car and my old Yamaha Bee Wizz that I used to zoom around on in my early twenties (many years ago now).
Making stuff? I currently have in mind to make an artsy looking solar powered water fountain out of some surplus copper tubing I have lying around, a mini water pump and a couple of solar cells I have spare (from tinkering with some cheap solar lights that never really worked)
So although I'm not strictly an Engineer, I guess I am one of the Maker/Mender movement?
Does spending 2 days performing open loom surgery on my sons' moped count as part of the maker/mender culture?
Traced to rotted connections under the bottom of the frame, and, the wires were very blackened and corroded internally, so had do cut about a dozen out and splice in new, solder (carefully) & heat shrink, then self-amalgam up the remaining joints we opened for inspection, then re-tape the whole loom almost from clocks, back to under the seat
I repair things on a regular basis, rather than bin them. Sometimes, however, things are just too much effort.
For example, I was looking at a piece of audio electronics recently ... a number of components needing replacing, and one of the faulty ICs was obsolete. After about an hour I decided on a couple of suitable replacements for the IC, which I just happened to have in m workshop (although they are ony 18p). But then when I started to look more closely on starting the repair, a number of things became apparent:
1. Lots of bad joints needing re-soldering (degraded after 10 years of use).
2. Quality of board (I'm not having a dig here - the manufacturer was building to a cost, and it's not MIL-STD stuff either), meaning heat required to use silver solder (never mind desolder) started causing problems (the appliance was made before lead-free was the law).
Eventually, it became a realisation that this was hours of a job with no guarantee of lasting success ... A replacement at well under £200 means much of the original product destined for the bin (but some parts kept for future home projects).
