capacitor blew up

[phintz]

Hello everyone, I was testing things for intial start up this afternoon, when we had the master on, and heard a few pops. I shut of the master switch to find out that the 22,000 uf capacitor blew the back off and I had oil running down the back of the firewall. I had it wired with one lead going to ground and the other to the R on the regulator. According to the wiring diagram it was wired correct. How is everyone elses wired??

thanks for you help in advance
Patrick series 6 builder

[Dave S]

Patrick,

I believe the capacitor has a + & a - terminal....on mine the - terminal was next to a row of arrows on the side of the canister. I hooked the - terminal of the capacitor to ground and the + terminal to the R term on the rectifier.

Don't know if all of them are marked +/- the same way or not.

That may or may not help....but that is how mine is hooked up.

Sincerely,

Dave S

[jrevens]

Dave's right... electrolytic capacitors are polarized and must be connected properly. If connections are reversed, gases can be formed, pressure builds, & the capacitor can explode. It sounds like that's what happened to yours.

[birddog486]

Mine did the same thing when I turned on the master the first time. It only took 5 seconds to blow my main fuse but it also blew the end off the capacitor because I wired it up backward.

The white stripe on the side of mine is the ground. It wasnt labeled so I figured I had a 50 50 shot unfortunately it didnt work out so well.