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> If you're comfortable with working on HV electronics and know how to solder and use a multimeter getting one of these for cheap is completely doable.

Err, you missed the most important one: knowledge to find the bad cap




It's usually the exploded looking one, but not always. I have replaced a great number of blowed up RIFA film caps in ancient Apple hardware. https://www.crackedthecode.co/replacing-failed-capacitors-in...


The fun thing about Rifas is that they're most there as filters; half the time the equipment still works fine, even AS it's emitting clouds of smoke from the final act of the capacitor's life.


This was during the bad caps era [0] of computing. Visual inspection and then testing with a multimeter was more than enough. The 10k volts was my bigger worry! But I was fearless for a free, large monitor.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague




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