What makes capacitors go bad

The capacitor that came with your system was selected for the right match to your motor. Changing the capacitance may cause your motor to stop working altogether. Financing Menu. Request Service. By ahaadmin. Share on facebook. Share on google. When the air conditioner unit is well maintained, on average the capacitors can last for 50, startup cycles which come to about six years. Capacitor replacement is a rather common problem and one that will be encountered one to three times during the life of the unit.

Some common signs that a capacitor needs to be replaced are failure for the unit to start up or a delayed start up cycle. If the capacitors to the fan motor went out the air conditioner unit will run but not blow cool air. If the refrigerant pump motor capacitors went out the unit will blow warm air. Skip to main content. AC Capacitors Electrical Overloads Another common problem that causes capacitors to fail are electrical overloads.

All rights reserved. When a capacitor begins to fail, the repair is relatively inexpensive. You just need a licensed technician to replace it with a new capacitor. Never try to replace the capacitor yourself! But if the air conditioner keeps trying to run with a bad capacitor, it can cause very serious damage to much more expensive parts. Instead of replacing a capacitor, you could end up having to replace the fan motor or the compressor.

This could even result in the entire air conditioner needing replaced. The capacitors are a frequently overlooked but extremely important component of your HVAC system. Keeping them in good working order through preventive maintenance and timely service will help to prevent summer breakdowns and more expensive repairs.

Office: Service ConditionedAirSolutions. Search for: Search. This can be aggravated by aqueous cleaning of circuit boards. Movement of the capacitor within the case can cause low I. Fatigue in the leads or mounting brackets can also cause a catastrophic failure.

The altitude at which hermetically sealed capacitors are to be operated will control the voltage rating of the capacitor. As the barometric pressure decreases so does the terminal "arc-over" susceptibility increase. Non-hermetic capacitors can be affected by internal stresses due to pressure changes. This can be in the form of capacitance changes or dielectric arc-overs as well as low I. Heat transfer can be also affected by high altitude operation. Heat generated at the lead terminations cannot be dissipated properly and can result in high 12R losses and eventual failure.

For space and nuclear applications, radiation capabilities of capacitors must be taken into consideration. Electrical degradation in the form of dielectric embrittlement can take place causing "shorts" or "opens" to occur. Radiation effects in capacitors may be either transient or permanent. Transient effects are changes in the electrical parameters, which are changes in capacitance and decreases in insulation resistance only during irradiation.

Special techniques and processes can be applied to capacitors to improve the radiation resistances for various plastic dielectrics. Capacitors with inorganic dielectrics and cases, such as glass, are more radiation resistant than those utilizing organic materials such as oil-impregnated paper.

In addition to electrical changes induced by ionizing radiation and particle bombardment, gas evolution from impregnants may build disruptive pressures in hermetically sealed cases.