As Harlan pointed out - I was an engineer for the FAA until retirement - We changed electrolytics as part of normal PM's on critical systems usually every 5 years or so. CDE (Cornell Dubilier) indicates expected life (MTBF) of devices operated within rated voltage & temp specs to be about 80-100 thousand hours. Most failures occur quickly around the end of that period. For 24/7 operated systems, that translates to around 8-10 years before rapid EOL failures begin to occur. Electrolytics can be thought of like incandescent lamps - they have a finite useful life and the fail quickly around the end of that time. ESR (Equivalent Series (AC) resistance) increases which reflects in higher ripple currents in power supplies are a main culprit. Check out: https://www.cde.com/resources/technical-papers/reliability.pdf 73 Gill W4RYW
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