What is the relationship between the life of an electrolytic capacitor and the power supply?
Article Source：QUNIO ELECTRONICS
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issuing time：2019-04-11
During the long-term operation of the power supply, there may be a large change in the output voltage due to looseness, displacement, etc. of the internal potentiometer, which may easily cause misjudgment or missed judgment. Therefore, in the case of higher requirements, the power supply and other equipment should be periodically calibrated to ensure its stability. However, once a year's calibration is generally not able to find the problem in time, when the output of the power supply is found to have a large deviation, the power supply may have been working in this state for several months.
The output performance of the power supply directly affects the working state of the device under test. If the output performance of the power supply is deteriorated, the working state of the device under test may change, which will affect the accuracy and consistency of the test. From a power point of view, there are a number of factors that can cause changes in output performance, which can affect test results.
The life of the power supply mainly depends on the life of the electrolytic capacitor. When the electrolytic capacitor passes the life guarantee period, it does not immediately fail, but its performance will become worse and worse, resulting in poor power quality of the power output. After the life of the electrolytic capacitor expires, the user may not immediately find the power output change, which will affect the test.
The life of an electrolytic capacitor is mainly related to its operating temperature. For every 10 °C rise in operating temperature, the life of the capacitor is reduced by half. The long-life electrolytic capacitor programming power supply uses high-temperature and long-life electrolytic capacitors, and through good circuit design and reasonable layout, the temperature rise of the electrolytic capacitor is reduced as much as possible, ensuring long life.
It can be seen that even under the worst working conditions specified in the specification (atmospheric temperature 50 ° C, full load, continuous operation for 24 hours without interruption), the life of electrolytic capacitors can still reach 5.3 years. Depending on the actual operating conditions, the electrolytic capacitors of this type of power supply may last for 15 years.
