Tried swapping a capacitor with one slightly higher voltage rating and my board started smoking immediately

I put a 25V cap in a spot that originally had a 16V one on this old amp board I was fixing and it worked for about 10 seconds before popping, so is the voltage rating more about tolerance than just handling extra power or did I mess up something else?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_james1mo ago

Wait did you check the polarity before you installed it? I heard on a forum once that using a higher voltage cap should be fine as long as the capacitance is the same, so maybe polarity or a bad solder joint caused the smoke. Could also be that the old cap failed and took out something else on the board that you missed. Either way, sounds like it wasn't just the voltage rating being higher that made it pop.

ruby_rivera761mo ago

Yeah @the_james, you're right. I used to think higher voltage was always safe but you changed my mind.

haydenbutler1mo ago

Yeah @the_james dropped some good knowledge there for sure.