"Highland Ham" ) writes:
What's the *intended* purpose of a 450v "computer grade" capacitor?
====================
Switch mode power suppplies ??


Frank GM0CSZ / KN6WH


I thought "computer grade" was either a marketing name, or at the
very most defined a certain design of capacitor.

In other words, they weren't designed for computers, but saw a lot of
use in them. They weren't cheap electrolytics of the type you'd
see in the average consumer equipment of thirty years ago.

You'd see them promoted in the surplus ads, and the ones I remember
were metal-cased, and had screw terminals for connections. I still
have one around I bought at a hamfest for a 12V power supply. It
was about 10,000uF (which was a fairly large size capacitor circa
1973 or so), had a voltage rating of about 16volts, and was the size
of a can of coke. Obviously a lot more impressive than the average
electrolytic of the day.

So once you had that style, it wasn't whether they were used in
computers or not, so of course you could have high voltage "computer
grade" capacitors.

I have no idea if it was a marketing ploy, "hey those are used in
computers [which were still uncommon at the time, and usually big
and very expensive], they must be good capacitors", or if there
was something about their design that made them better than the
average electrolytic of the time.

Michael VE2BVW