My ECM has unusual looking capacitors

[918wildwood]

I thought I would pull the ECM out of my '95 302 to swap the capacitors for preventative maintenance. I have dabbled in home stereo repair so I felt confident in replacing them after watching some videos, however, these are not like the traditional capacitors I have worked with before, or seen in ECM repair videos. They are really short and it's like they are sitting on a little platform. Not only that, the pads are super close to other pads on the board. I have some soldering experience but I'm not precise with my joints. I have been really excited to do this cheap but possibly beneficial project but I'm about to talk myself out of messing with this. Can someone please tell me what style capacitor this is, and were these common on certain boards?

 

[Tiha]

I have done CAP repair on an ECM, but have on a lot of other things.

Pretty sure those are fine and not the Capacitor style that cause problems and fail. I honestly wouldn't mess with it.

But at least now you know.

 

[918wildwood]

I have done CAP repair on an ECM, but have on a lot of other things.

Pretty sure those are fine and not the Capacitor style that cause problems and fail. I honestly wouldn't mess with it.

But at least now you know.

Thank you for the reply... I found out these are called surface mount capacitors. I they are leaking though, you just have to see up close. Even if they are not they are 30 years old so probably worth changing them out now that I've got everything opened up

 

[Tiha]

I usually got to Digikey for starters. Hopefully this link will work.

I would imagine that is a 10 micro farad and 50V

https://www.digikey.com/en/products...FcBOAzAhgYwKYAIC2A9ggHYAuOGaADpgJakFJwgC6AvkA

 

[918wildwood]

I usually got to Digikey for starters. Hopefully this link will work.

I would imagine that is a 10 micro farad and 50V

https://www.digikey.com/en/products...FcBOAzAhgYwKYAIC2A9ggHYAuOGaADpgJakFJwgC6AvkA

Yep, already ordered from Digikey! Based on what I'd read beforehand I expected three caps, but there were only two.. A 16 volt 47 microfarad, and a 50 volt 10 microfarad. I went up in voltage capacity on both. Fingers crossed I don't destroy the circuit board when these things come in next week. I wish I could take it into a shop just to be on the safe side but no one I've talked to is interested

 

[Tiha]

I am not as steady with a soldering iron as I used to be. Watched lots of videos of guys using a small torch or pen tip heat gun. I would imagine that would be safer.

 

[918wildwood]

I am not as steady with a soldering iron as I used to be. Watched lots of videos of guys using a small torch or pen tip heat gun. I would imagine that would be safer.

Yeah I'm not exactly incredible at soldering, but can't find anyone locally to do it, and a replacement board costs a crapload, so may as well go for it . I'm going to use the smallest tip I have and hope for the best. I'm so aggravated that this thing didn't have normal through hole capacitors

 

[goffprof]

I thought I would pull the ECM out of my '95 302 to swap the capacitors for preventative maintenance. I have dabbled in home stereo repair so I felt confident in replacing them after watching some videos, however, these are not like the traditional capacitors I have worked with before, or seen in ECM repair videos. They are really short and it's like they are sitting on a little platform. Not only that, the pads are super close to other pads on the board. I have some soldering experience but I'm not precise with my joints. I have been really excited to do this cheap but possibly beneficial project but I'm about to talk myself out of messing with this. Can someone please tell me what style capacitor this is, and were these common on certain boards?

I ordered a set of ECM capacitors for my ‘96 Bronco from eBay and will replace them soon. I will use a Weller soldering station with a solder sucker. Be careful the new caps are installed with the correct polarity. Getting the ECM out is worse than replacing the caps.

Al