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From: smh@mit-eddie.UUCP (Steven M. Haflich)
Newsgroups: net.analog
Subject: Re: Big Capacitors
Message-ID: <3199@mit-eddie.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 27-Nov-84 20:33:26 EST
Article-I.D.: mit-eddi.3199
Posted: Tue Nov 27 20:33:26 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 28-Nov-84 05:22:40 EST
References: <178@ihnet.UUCP> <1812@sun.uucp>
Reply-To: smh@mit-eddie.UUCP (Steven M. Haflich)
Organization: MIT, Cambridge, MA
Lines: 15

The last time one of our esoteric-hardware device cooked its power
supply capacitors I visited the famous emporium of Eli Heffron,
purveyors of fine salvages electronics to MIT and the rest of the east
coast literally for generations.  While pawing though the bins of
salvage capacitrongers, I noticed a large number of 140,000 mFd
beauties.  They were typical screw-terminal electrolytics, cylinders
perhaps 2.5 inch in diameter, and perhaps 10 inches long, with (I think)
a working voltage 5 V.  One could bundle seven (hexagonal lattice) and
hold it in one hand, yielding .98 F.

Another trivium:  Back in the late sixties some wag totalled the filter
capacitors in the (extensively munger) MIT Research Lab of Electronics
time-sharing PDP1 (arguably the *first* multi-processing minicomputer)
and found it contained six Farads worth.  This machine (mostly) ran on
-3VDC logic which required three voltage supplies to function.