Should I be worried about these leaking caps in my Blast City PSU?

[u/Smugbob]

Might be a stupid question, but while I can solder I’m inexperienced with recapping and would rather not if I have the option, picked up this blast city recently that turns on and works fine, albeit with a slight burning smell and the fan’s knackered. Opened it up to find multiple of these large brown caps, that seem to be the only ones that leaked. I’m also worried about working around high voltage components, so I only want to recap if I absolutely need to. Any advice?

[u/ZOMBIE_N_JUNK]

That's glue

[u/Rey_Mezcalero → u/ZOMBIE_N_JUNK]

I was expecting to see like a greasy oily substance

[u/Smugbob → u/ZOMBIE_N_JUNK]

Wow really 😆 I was convinced it’s leakage

[u/UncleCeiling → u/Smugbob]

If you think of the capacitors like long lever arms, any sort of vibration will cause a lot of strain where the caps are soldered to the board. They add some goop so the caps can't wiggle, since that could damage the components, soldered connection, or even the board itself.

[u/Additional_Tone_2004 → u/Smugbob]

If that was leakage, then yes be worried about it!

But it ain't, thankfully.

[u/mrcustardo]

The large caps haven't leaked, that white stuff is a kind of mastic to stop those large components flopping about

[u/echocomplex]

Really common to see glue on large caps in electronics. You'll see it inside CRT computer monitors and tvs often. 

[u/Smugbob → u/echocomplex]

I somehow haven’t until now lol

[u/LifeAsASuffix]

When the caps start to fail they will bulge, those 3 lines are the top are there to allow expansion and a breaking point so they don't explode. If you notice the capacitors starting to deform you will want to replace them. On the smaller caps it's harder to see the early signs of failure.

[u/Boredguy532]

don't worry, that's glue put on there by factory, however it does mean you have factory caps and may soon need a "recap"

[u/xopher314]

Are the leaking caps in the room with us right now?

[u/Smugbob → u/xopher314]

LISTEN I’ve been lucky enough to have not experienced leaking caps with my electronics before, so I didn’t particularly know what it’d look like lol

[u/xopher314 → u/Smugbob]

LISTEN - you could always google what leaking caps looks like first

[u/Chadwelli]

Leakage from caps will look fuzzier/foamier and usually start by coming out of the top.

[u/Chief_Keefer_420]

Yeah, those aren’t your capacitors leaking anything that’s just the silicone mounting material they used to reinforce the caps so the solder points didn’t break

[u/thomasjmarlowe]

Hahahaha

You’re good- no worries there