Fault - the smell is like an old "cap" gun

Octopus · Oct 11, 2018

Ok - this is going to sound odd but a good customer of mine has a fault on a lighting circuit - the odd thing is that the smell was like the "cap" guns from my early days!

Any suggestions of what might make that smell (assuming you remember it too)

I've given them a quick temporary fix for tonight so they don't have use of 3 sets of lights .......... and will be going back tomorrow when its light and I have more time

Thanks

Darkwood · Oct 13, 2018

The cap gun smell, pardon my age is common to the older gen' it is often associated with overheated contactors made from bakelite but we of course have moved on from this to plastics but the actual smell can be caused by carbonisation caused by arcing and tracking and can effect different materials yet smell the same, plastics don't give the same smell but electronic components can still give that familiar smell when they commit suicide.
There are a many examples to give out such a smell and many are common ones and I suspect an electronic component failed.

The fishy smell was mentioned and that is usually associated with the insulation coating on windings of motors, chokes, transformers etc if they overheat, it also common to see white smoke on these failures if you are there to witness them, this is a routine question I ask if an operator of a machine if they see smoke and says they could smell it.

a-z electrics · Oct 13, 2018

Is the light switch a trigger? That would be a clue

Squid · Oct 13, 2018

For the slow ones on here the issue has been resolved, I can imagine the emergency call outs "we'll be there in two weeks" oooh argh oooh argh as my cow is birthing.......... ;o))))) (wifey nickname) ;o)))))

a-z electrics · Oct 13, 2018

Yes actually the cap smell could ironically be to do with exploding capacitors too.. I now recall in my electronic industry days. The big ones don't half go with a bang too!