My $15 capacitor took 4 hours to diagnose

I spent a whole Saturday chasing a ghost in a vintage Pioneer receiver that would power up but put out zero sound. Turned out to be a single bad coupling capacitor on the preamp board that tested fine with my meter but went open under load. Has anyone else had a component pass bench tests but fail in circuit like that?

2 comments

2 Comments

pat3601mo ago

Nah man, four hours on a vintage receiver ain't that bad, that's just part of the game.

max8081mo ago

Ngl that's wild. A capacitor that tested fine on the bench but crapped out under load is the stuff of nightmares. I've had resistors drift out of spec when they got hot before, but never a cap that played dead like that. Four hours of chasing your tail over a fifteen cent part is brutal. Makes you wonder how many other parts are just waiting to fail once you button everything back up.