'Bad caps' refers to leaking electrolytic
capacitors. Capacitors come in many shapes and sizes, but when one refers
to 'bad caps', they are speaking of either electrolytic's, or surface mounted
electrolytic's.
Electrolytic capacitors and their SMD counterparts (Surface Mounted Device) are heat sensitive and will break down and leak over time. Add to this the unscrupulous companies that made cheap capacitors, and the manufacturing companies that used them to save a buck, and nearly all electronics across the board are or were suffering from bad caps - including automotive electronics and computer motherboards, and game consoles. This is but one of the 'dirty little secret' that the manufacturers don't talk about. Imagine if the car industry was held to account for the bad caps in the 'electronic brains' or electronic dashboards, etc. Or if the camcorder manufacturers were held to account for the products they made that went bad shortly after the warranty was up - all because of a fairly inexpensive part - the electrolytic capacitor. Many companies chose to not even use them any longer in their designs. Smart move.
When a capacitor begins to physically leak, a caustic
substance (electrolyte) slowly oozes out, and begins to eat away at the circuit board,
and anything else it touches in the surrounding area. If the circuit board
has multiple layers, this problem is exacerbated and can destroy the circuit board very quickly. If (and this is a big IF) we are able to get to to the unit in time and IF the circuit board isn't irreparably damaged, we can remove the old capacitors and replace them with new, high quality, longer life capacitors. We only use long life, high quality, high temperature capacitors that are currently available. Depending on the year, the make and the model of the audio/ video equipment, this will determine how many capacitors are inside that need to be replaced. Some models have hundreds of bad caps, others have less.
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