PCB Component Question

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Bonfire97

6:29p, 4/12/24

I am trying to fix a "Turtlebox" for a friend of mine's son. There are a couple of popped 1000uF caps on the PCB. However, I ran across this odd component. Does anyone know what this is? Thanks in advance.

https://imgur.com/a/fqDQZOH

92_Ag

8:44p, 4/12/24

Looks like a completely blown electrolytic capacitor. If you remove it from the pcb you should see the component name/numbering and tell for certain.

Bonfire97

9:25p, 4/12/24

Thanks! I was wondering if that is what it was. There are 3 more 1000uF electrolytics that are popcorned. I am just wondering what would have caused this sort of damage and if it worth trying to solder on new ones or if whatever event caused this probably blew up chips and other things on the PCB.

FatZilla

10:43p, 4/12/24

Age could have killed 1 and blew the others once 1 died. Also, replace those electrolytics with tantalums if you can. No more popping or leaking to worry about.

UmustBKidding

7:23a, 4/13/24

Likely due to reverse voltage being applied. Tantalums will explode with reverse voltage. I would say at best a toss up when you get obvious parts replaced of it working

MGS

9:06a, 4/13/24

Is the device around twenty years old?

92_Ag

1:08p, 4/13/24

In reply to Bonfire97

Bonfire97 said:
Thanks! I was wondering if that is what it was. There are 3 more 1000uF electrolytics that are popcorned. I am just wondering what would have caused this sort of damage and if it worth trying to solder on new ones or if whatever event caused this probably blew up chips and other things on the PCB.

It would be nearly impossible to determine without inspecting the circuit board and checking out some of the other components leading to/from them to figure out what happened specifically.

You should probably spend a little time checking the circuit components if you have the tools to do so. Age failure is certainly one possibility but so are many others. Capacitors are cheap so just replacing them might be a good start if you don't really care about any other damage ramifications, but you should be prepared for the possibility of even the new ones failing (maybe even spectacularly). Personally, I'd be really cautious and skeptical of the circuit going forward for a while without having traced the failure and diagnosed the event with some degree of certainty.

Goes without saying that caps can cause some personal harm as far as stored discharge goes if you don't drain them while playing with a post-repair powered circuit, even small ones.

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