Proactive Caps Replacement

[CodyWayne]

Hi everybody,

 

I'm currently in the process of going through all my retro systems and doing full cap replacements just to be on the safe side. So far I've recapped my Genesis and 32x, and both have been a success. I'm still planning to do my SNES, NES, and Sega CD in the near future. Some point later on down the road I'll do my Saturn, PS1, and N64.

 

I'm also planning to replace the batteries in all my carts that have them, and I noticed that every cart I looked at has a cap (or caps) in it. All of them that I've seen are the same size: 22uf, 6.3v radial leaded.

 

I was thinking that as I'm going through and replacing the batteries I might also replace the cart caps while I'm at it. Is this overkill, or is it recommended to proactively replace cart caps? I've seen lots of videos and people talking about battery replacement, but nobody ever talks about cart caps, so I was just curious about it.

 

[spacecadet]

I think it's probably overkill to proactively recap anything. If you're good at it and you like doing it and you've had success, then more power to you. (Everybody likes different aspects of this hobby, so maybe this is just your interest.) But for most people, there's no point in recapping something that's working. The systems that you've done are also not really old enough to be blowing caps yet.

 

I'm also into vintage audio equipment and even there, where you're talking 40-50 year old stuff with much larger amounts of power running through big electrolytic caps, there's debate on whether or not people should be going through and replacing caps wholesale. Game consoles run at relatively low power and usually don't strain their caps all that much. I personally haven't had any of the 40+ game consoles I own/have owned die because of a bad cap, although it probably happens occasionally. Then again, game consoles also occasionally get infested with spiders, but it's still probably not worth proactively fumigating them.

 

So you probably know my opinion on recapping carts...

[CodyWayne]

I see where you're coming from. It's the classic "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." school of thought.

 

To be fair, though, just because your old consoles still work doesn't mean the signal isn't somewhat degraded. Capacitors aren't like light bulbs where they instantly go from 100% working to 100% dead. They slowly degrade and lose their capacitance over time. In the case of those 40-50 year old vintage audio devices you're talking about the capacitors have almost certainly lost a lot of capacitance by now. I don't know how much that lost capacitance would degrade the audio quality, and it's also possible that it's coloring the sound in a way that's pleasing to some people.

 

The point though, is that if you want the audio and video quality to be as close to new as possible, and if you want the peace of mind of knowing that you aren't going to have to repair damage from a leaked capacitor anytime soon, then it's not a bad idea to replace the caps. It's not like we are talking about a significant monetary investment here. Caps are very cheap.

[+save2600]

With very, very few exceptions (famous examples like Amiga CD32/1200/4000 and some accelerator boards where SMD caps were installed backwards at the plant), there's a reason why most people don't mention capacitor replacement in these circles because it's a big waste_of_time IMO. YMMV though and if it makes you feel better to replace (seems you're already biased toward this belief), then have at it!

 

[CodyWayne]

Another good example of a system with notoriously bad caps is the Turbo Duo. Game-tech.us has videos where he talks about that. It seems like many of the early SMD caps were less reliable than leaded caps from the same era.

[7800fan]

Game Gear, Turbo Duo and black PCE Duo, and TurboExpress and PCE GT all have serious cap problem. White Duo-R and Duo-RX are fine for now but may need to be recapped later. Other consoles may only need minor repair like the green chicklet cap in 2600. Also some electronics made in 2000-2007 had really bad caps due to industrial theft gone wrong.

 

I did replace caps in Intellivision. I was trying to find cause of really shitty blurry video and when I pulled and tested one cap, it failed ESR. Some cap that are in power supply can often get warm and may be subject to failure. Other than Intellivision, most consoles up through 16-bits generation used external power supply and were cooler than most later consoles with internal power supplies.

 

99% of other consoles may not need recapping at all. If you don't see bulging or leaks, and they don't get hot regularly, let it be.