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In Progress
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Gerrard Campbell at HVAC Technical Academy
Gerrard Campbell video - Capacitor
Gerrard Campbell video transcript - Capacitor (Training Transcript)
Good afternoon. I’m Gerrard with HVAC Technical Academy. Today I’m going to be talking about a capacitor — how they go bad, how to know if they’re bad, and the purpose of a capacitor. The purpose of a capacitor is that all electronic motors need three legs of power, so this serves as the third leg of power. You have different types of capacitors. You have run capacitors, start capacitors, and dual run capacitors.
To test these, every capacitor has its own rating. This capacitor has a 7.5 rating with a give or take of 5 percent. You’ll come over to your multimeter, put it on microfarads, and touch the two prongs. Sometimes I get a rating of 5.88. So with a give or take of 5 percent, this is a bad capacitor. It cannot be repaired because it’s hermetically sealed, so you’re going to toss this out and get a new one.
A capacitor is not a hard start. This is a hard start. If you have your house set to 75 but it’s only reaching 80, that could be an indicator that you have a bad capacitor. It’s like a flashlight — when your batteries get low, the flashlight dims. Same idea.
So, how do they go bad? A capacitor goes bad over time, from age, electricity problems, things like that. Again, I’m Gerrard with HVAC Technical Academy. Have a nice day.