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From: john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com>
Newsgroups: sci.electronics.design
Subject: Re: heating a cap
Date: Fri, 04 Oct 2024 12:44:36 -0700
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On Fri, 04 Oct 2024 18:00:51 +0100, Cursitor Doom <cd@notformail.com>
wrote:

>On Thu, 03 Oct 2024 16:36:24 -0700, john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com>
>wrote:
>
>>I got a small (under 1" long) aluminum electro cap, 220 uF 63v, and
>>cranked up the voltage. It started drawing a bunch of current at 105
>>volts, got hot, and folded back to 80 mA at 87v. 
>>
>>It got too hot to touch in a couple of minutes, after roughly 500
>>joules. Freeze spray let it go back up to 100 volts or so.
>>
>>None of that seemed to damage it, so an electrolytic cap sort of has a
>>built-in MOV. 
>
>That's a hell of sweeping conclusion to come to based on a test of
>just one random electrolytic!

It's more data than no experiment would provide.

Elecs seem to explode from internal steam pressure, which sounds
fairly predictable.

But other people here could try it too.

Film caps fail suddenly at some large multiple of rated voltage.
Ceramics too, but some start leaking first. 

Is seems like elecs start to leak seriously at about 1.5x rated
voltage and die from overheating.