I found a great match for a 25 year old capacitor - same brand, size, value, voltage, basically the same series. BUT! The new one has "snap-in" mount and the old one on the PCB has solder leads. Is there a common way to make this work? I've never had to deal with this before, but it seems that these snap-in types are much more common especially for power supply filter caps, which is what I am replacing.

I had a thought: cut off the snap-in leads, then take some solid copper wire, about 1mm in diameter, and solder that to the connectors on the cap to make leads, then feed them through the board and solder like regular leads. Is that too half-ass?

Another thought was to just grind down those snap-in connectors until they are small enough to fit through the lead holes.

 

The big caution here is distance and series resistance. I did that wire jumper thing on my mother's TV and it suddenly had all kinds of power supply noise and instability. If you are in that kind of condition, it is imperitive that you minimize the distance from the capacitor to the board, no matter what you have to grind down or glue on.

Of course, the best answer is the "right" capacitor, but every time a machine can take a man's job, a different way is invented to attach parts.

 

The big caution here is distance and series resistance. I did that wire jumper thing on my mother's TV and it suddenly had all kinds of power supply noise and instability. If you are in that kind of condition, it is imperitive that you minimize the distance from the capacitor to the board, no matter what you have to grind down or glue on.

Of course, the best answer is the "right" capacitor, but every time a machine can take a man's job, a different way is invented to attach parts.

The cap would be mounted on the top of the board in the same way no matter what; no distance between it and board. So the question is how to get leads through the PCB so they can soldered.

 

Short pieces of wire will work, as you suggested. Just try to make a mechanical way to keep the capacitor from bouncing around and tugging on the wires when the machine gets moved.

 

You can use the "hot melt" method, but you may need to get back at that cap again in a few years to replace it. (Hopefully another 25 years )

 

Short pieces of wire will work, as you suggested. Just try to make a mechanical way to keep the capacitor from bouncing around and tugging on the wires when the machine gets moved.

The original had some glue, as do most of these larger can types. My question now is just what glue is best for holding caps in place? Silicone may be too rubbery, hot glue is fast, but too hard to get in to tight places. How about Elmers???