Taking a cap out of a circuit board for a test and then putting back in will most likely cause more problems than the slim chance of finding a "possible" bad cap...
Apart form a bad batch of caps as mentioned by John, caps are pretty long lasting, in general.
When I purchase an "old new stock" item from ebay, I mentally add the cost of a possible repair to the offer price and that gives me the "my possible total" cost in case there is a problem. For example: An MTH SD70 Ace proto 2, NIB never tested, I offer $200 knowing that if it has a bad board I will need about $100 more to fix it, so my potential final cost $is $300, not the best price but if no problem found, $200 is a great price for a DCS NIB loco and the chances are slim there is problem. So far, This has worked to my benefit since I have yet to have a problem with DCS and more recently Legacy unis purchased on ebay or privately...
Originally Posted by gunrunnerjohn:
Uhh Alan, they're in circuit, harder to test accurately. In any case, this is simply not an issue with these boards, unless someone has slipped some bogus ones in the pile. Testing capacitors on these boards is looking for problems where none exist.
