[Tfug] Ezgo "book-PC"

[Ronald Sutherland]

On Mon, May 12, 2008 at 4:54 PM, John Karns <johnkarns at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Thu, May 8, 2008 at 12:18 PM, Bexley Hall <bexley401 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> >  I rescued an Ezgo E7041 at WorldCare last week.
> >  It's a cute little machine -- about the size
> >  of an overstuffed CD-ROM drive -- with an
> >  amusing complement of I/O (for a rough idea,
> >  see http://www.ezgo.it/E7041pic.htm).
>
> Looks interesting!  Is it about the same size as a mini-itx board?  It
> looks like it may be a little smaller.
>
>
> >  I suspect it was sh*t-canned due to bad caps.  :<
> >  Which brings up another question:  I've seen a
> >  *lot* of (different) machines plagued by this problem.
> >  It's not confined to the off-beat brands, either
> >  (i.e., I have seen Big Blue machines with the same
> >  problem).
> >
> >  What sort of experiences have others had with
> >  this "failure mode"? (I want to be damn sure to
> >  avoid any such component manufacturer!)
>
> What's the brand marking on the caps?
>
> It could be cheap design, but just as likely, exposure to hi-temp
> conditions here in the desert.  Like batteries, electrolytic caps are
> sensitive to heat, and their life expectancy is inversely proportional
> to temperature.
>
> --


Don't be to quick to blame the capacitor(s), the system power supply can
cook them. The power supply provides DC to the electronics, true enough, but
its conversion processes includes a lot of noise. If the power supply was
not built correctly and was not tested well enough (none are) then some get
out that include a lot of noise in the DC. Those capacitors on the
electronics boards are partly for reducing noise from the power supply but
mainly for noise from the electronics them self. They self heat due to the
effects of the noise and can be cooked to death if the power supply is
adding to much of its own noise. Anyway one bad capacitor is probably the
capacitor itself, but a board covered in puffed up, or leaking electrolytic
capacitors is probably a bad power supply.
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