Aluminum electrolytic Capacitor storage

Engineer asked Mar 24,2025
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I have electronic devices manufactured in the early 90s and early 2000s and they use aluminum electrolytic capacitors and I store them in my house at a temperature of varies 34-36C with varies humidity of 58-68%. Can these devices remain stored indefinitely without use or is it necessary to follow some procedure because of the aluminum electrolytic capacitors? Do the devices work normally?

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    The electrolyte of such capacitors will dry out after such long periodes about 25 to 35 years. The capacitance decreases massive because of the dry electrolyte. This may lead to disfunctionality in some cases but also can lead to serious demage. Rectifiers at the power input have such capacitors to get a smooth dc voltage. If this capcitors have low capacitance the electronic circuit behind it, will get pulsed dc instead of smooth dc voltage. So it will not work properly. Sometimes such capacitors will get hot, explode and make short circuits which destroys the rectifier diodes. It is strongly recommended to replace all the elko's with new ones. (same capacitance and same voltage level). I have done this procedure several times on old devices before power on.

    Mar 26,20251 Comments
    Engineer 2025-03-26 03:41:43Reply

    Currently all devices work normally, sometimes I take them out of the box and energize them, but in my storage conditions and age devices I wanted to select a time interval to energize these devices to prevent failures in the aluminum electrolytic capacitors caused by disuse.

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