It appears that the negative connection is marked with minus signs on the wrapper. Is this correct?
I removed someone’s homemade BCR imitation that had the red connected to the negative pole.
The engine that had this installed didn’t work.
Will reversing the connections damage the PS2 3 volt board or the super cap?
Thank you
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Yes, reverse polarity causes damage to polarized capacitors (super caps are polarized), this either causes outright failure or damage to capacitance and lifespan. There either can be visible or non-visible damage. I would not trust them if they did see reverse polarity.
For me, I was building my own capacitor sets and using Zener diodes even on the 3V versions to ensure balancing and no reverse voltage problems. I know many folks just use the supposedly matched pre-connected 5V pairs.
That said, I would never go on wire color alone. Are you sure the connection to the board is correct? This was a recent discussion with pictures https://ogrforum.ogaugerr.com/...4#164588232434864614
It's possible a mistake was made, but also, the 9V style of super capacitor ofen did require reversal and someone got it wrong for a 3V.
Straight from Eaton https://www.eaton.com/content/...ation-guidelines.pdf
Polarity
Eaton supercapacitors are designed with symmetrical electrodes, meaning they are similar in composition. When a supercapacitor is first assembled, either electrode can be designated positive or negative. Once the supercapacitor is charged for the first time during the 100% QA testing operation, the electrodes become polarized. Every supercapacitor either has a negative stripe or sign denoting polarity. Although they can be shorted to zero volts, the electrodes maintain a very small amount of charge. Reverse polarity is not recommended, however previously charged supercapacitors have been discharged to -2.5 V with no measurable difference in capacitance or ESR. Note: the longer they are held charged in one direction, the more polarized they become. If reversed charged after prolonged charging in one direction, the life of the supercapacitor may be shortened.
Charging voltage is above 2.5V on a 3V PS2 system. Reading this, I kind of have a mixed feeling. On one hand, you build a set, you wire it wrong, you put it in and charge it- supposedly it's fine. It was never charged at the factory, this first charge determines the polarity and as long as that remains the same, the marking doesn't matter.
However, this is for Eaton brand, and hat doesn't mean all bands are not factory polarized and they do fail.
You said it did not work, so there is at least one indication of a problem.
What I do in this situation is put a DC meter in parallel reading the terminal voltage of the capacitors. I then power the PS2 board and watch the voltage begin to rise on the caps. No rise indicates a problem.
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