Boss 5 Series 1 Bridge Rectifier

[kewl_cat]

I just had a second bridge rectifier go out on my Boss 5. 2nd in about 2 months. Any ideas why these would keep blowing. I have about 56V output on the T2 so voltage seems ok. I installed my spare and the machine is back running. Current on the ACC board is 7.9-8.0A. I am out in the woods a little and voltage can be poor sometimes. I have voltage drops sometimes. The electric company says it is not enough to worry about but I was wondering if voltage drops or spikes could be the culprit?
-rob

[79TigerPilot]

Don't know anything about your particular rectifier but three common things come to mind. Over voltage, over temperature and over current. Too high a reverse voltage for the diode's PIV rating will kill it very fast, these usually come form line transients or in some cases from inductive loads or use of too low a PIV rated diode. Too high of average load current or disconnected heat sink can over heat the device and kill it. This is usually the easiest to detect with a thermal probe. Another killer is a single cycle current surge either from line input transients, load transients or the inrush current from the filter capacitors as they charge up.

Craig