burned out spark capacitor Electrolyze system swimming pool

Thread Starter

mlaauwen

Joined Oct 3, 2020
5
Hello I am new to the forum and am hoping on some help. We have a electrolyse system for our pool (Hydrolife Sal22b) and a spark capacitor is burned out on the PCB board which turn off the power to the electrolyse plates ( they work on around 8v says around max 20 amps). I have send the system to the manufacturer and they say it has been hit by either lightning or a over voltage which is very strange because during that period there was no such thing, thunder or lightning. They gave me an huge estimate which is nearly the new price. I however doubt if this has been the reason next to the spark capacitor I see a transistor which has a bad soldering or a solder which looks affected by extreme heat. I therefor suspect that the spark capacitor is burned out for this reason.
Could this be a reason?? The next question is to find a replacement spark capacitor, there are no technical manuals for it so it is gonna be a guess. is there anyone who can help? I was thinking on using the size as a reference? The size is 21mm wide 17or 18mm Height 10mm thickness. Is there any technician who can help me out? giving me an idea what spark capacitor to fit in terms of microfarad and voltage?
 

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shortbus

Joined Sep 30, 2009
10,045
Personally I think you would be chasing your tail on this. For something to do that to the capacitor, there are going to be many more components affected. Think that the company was correct lightning or some other large voltage hit it.
 

Thread Starter

mlaauwen

Joined Oct 3, 2020
5
Personally I think you would be chasing your tail on this. For something to do that to the capacitor, there are going to be many more components affected. Think that the company was correct lightning or some other large voltage hit it.
could be but many times there is just a mother explainable reason for it if there was a struck of lightning the whole machine would have been not working the display and the ph dosing is working only the (secondary power supply) to the coil (electrolyse cell) is not working it could also be maybe that there was a kind of short or higher resistance due to lime grow between the electrolyse plates which might cause a short or so really not sure what happened but lightning I sincerely doubt that as the rest of the machine still works. Other thing is the electrolyse system only worked for about 4 hours a day and is controlled by a timer so it must have been such a coincidence 1th that the electrolyse system was working during the lightning if not it was separated from the mains, 2th that the timer survived the machine survived only the power supply which is secundary in the machine got hit. If I disconnect the cell the machine works fine only when the cell is connected and therefor the machine is trying to activate the cell the software resets itself as it receives an error . Thanks for your reply.
 

Alec_t

Joined Sep 17, 2013
14,280
You refer to electrolysis plates, but the image shows a coil with a solder connection to the pcb. I don't know what the purpose of the coil is, but it shows signs of having overheated (there's insulation darkening even on the side away from the dead cap) and its solder connection looks to be dry-jointed. If the coil became open-circuit when carrying heavy current there would be a high inductive kick voltage generated. That, or the coil overheating, could have resulted in at least the capacitor failing and catching fire.
 

AlbertHall

Joined Jun 4, 2014
12,345
The problem with going by the size is that there is a trade off between voltage and capacitance for any particular size. A high capacitance and low voltage may be the same size as a lower capacitance and higher voltage device.
 

Thread Starter

mlaauwen

Joined Oct 3, 2020
5
You refer to electrolysis plates, but the image shows a coil with a solder connection to the pcb. I don't know what the purpose of the coil is, but it shows signs of having overheated (there's insulation darkening even on the side away from the dead cap) and its solder connection looks to be dry-jointed. If the coil became open-circuit when carrying heavy current there would be a high inductive kick voltage generated. That, or the coil overheating, could have resulted in at least the capacitor failing and catching fire.
that's what I think that happened, with coil I am not sure if there is a coil from the PCB it is going to the connector of the cell (I believe there are only several titanium plates) the cell works on around 8v with a maximum of 20 amps. So if the the chlorine level in the pool is low the amps on the cell will rise to produce more chlorine. The pool is a salty pool so the salty water which is alkaline will flow along the titanium plates and will produce chlorine gasses. I now have a not working system so my try would be see if only replacing the capacitor will safe the system if there are more components defect it will be end of life but am trying to see if it can be saved. Hope someone can help. Thanks for your reply!
 

Thread Starter

mlaauwen

Joined Oct 3, 2020
5
The problem with going by the size is that there is a trade off between voltage and capacitance for any particular size. A high capacitance and low voltage may be the same size as a lower capacitance and higher voltage device.
I am not sure there is a lot of logical choices If I look at Farnel they more or less start at around 100v up to 2500v which is not very likely as the cell is working on 8v and if I looked correctly the entrance power supply is 24v so I am not expecting it needs to be of high voltage. The original value might be 100v or 250v (most likely) I think. I am just trying to see I can safe the the system if it won't work at least I tried. The cost of the capacitor is probably a couple of bugs, The whole system is around 2 grand. Thanks for your reply!
 
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