Extremely informative - thank you for posting. Tony Antoniou wrote:
Long and short of it is that IEC have two capacitor classes, hence the X and Y classes you guys have come across. That's not to suggest that one class is better over the other - just that one suits a particular application better than the other. Class X is used in applications where damage to the capacitor will not lead to electric shock whereas Class Y is used when there is a danger. In a nutshell, class Y caps are better insulated than class X so they're less likely to become hazardous in an area where exposure to electric shock is likely. This does not mean that Y is better than X in every single application. Such as a computer motherboard, for example, where the low-voltage nature of the board means you can quite happily use either one. So effectively, it's not about what class you're using, but what brand. For a lot of designs that I work with where they're used in industrial applications, I've always been a major fan of Evox-Rifa and I often use them, Siemens and Panasonic caps when repairing motherboards (depending on what's available - they're all equally reliable in that application). So remember guys, for PC equipment look at the manufacturer, not the class - unless it's a power supply and then you look at both manufacturer and class. You don't want an X class blowing and potentially shooting debris into other areas that could do even more damage.
-- Cheers, joeuser (still looking for the 'any' key)
