Further to the below, i found this info:
"Capacitors are also widely used in oscillator, filter and
timing circuits, because their charging rate and discharging rate can be a
ccurately calculated.
In an RC circuit, the value of the time constant (in seconds) is equal to the product of the circuit resistance (in ohms) and the circuit capacitance (in farads), i.e. R × C. It is the time required to charge the capacitor, through the resistor, to 63.2% of full charge; or to discharge it to 36.8% of its initial voltage. These odd looking percentages are derived from the mathematical constant e (2.71828, the base for natural logarithms), specifically 1 − 1/e and 1/e respectively.
Oscillator and timing circuits are commonly used in
digital systems to provide frequency generators and
timing. Oscillators and filters are typically found in analog circuits, i.e. audio or radio-frequency (RF)."
http://electronics.stackexchange.com/qu ... capacitors
To paraphrase:
"the time constant (in seconds) is equal to the product of the circuit resistance (in ohms) and the circuit
capacitance (in farads). It is the time required to charge the capacitor, or to discharge it."
Reading further about capacitors, the black one is an Electrolytic Capacitor and they have a life of 2,000 hours (83 days) at 85c. Double that life for every 10c drop in temp. Say an ave of 15c, that would be a multiplier of 7, so 14,000 hrs / 581 days. Constant use. Say, 2 hours per week, thats only 4 / 5 constant days use per year. Call it 6. Technically, should last a little under 100 yrs. Nice. Apparently though the life span / shelf life of these type of aluminium canned capacitors is about 20-30 years with or without use. Kind of like an AA battery - If you keep them in the pack, after 10 years you won't be able unpackage them and use them in the remote anymore. So i guess the Capacitor has reached it's end of life. Only about 83p from Maplin so i'll stop in there tomorrow and pick up a replacement:
http://www.maplin.co.uk/p/47f-63v-40-to ... itor-at06g
And solder it in tomorrow evening. Hoping that i don't need to replace the yellow one. It's harder to get to but different material - Polypro Metallized; I believe the .1/5/100 markings are 0.1 uF Tolerance: 5%; Voltage: 100 Hoping that has a longer life. It does read as having a much higher resistance. The black one has a rating of 47uF and has a resistance of 15kOhm, the yellow, lower rated 0.1uF one has a resistance of 1.5mOhms. I believe that the yellow one should have a much lower resistance relative when comparing the two.
http://ex-en.alliedelec.com/search/prod ... #tab=specs_________________
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This is what really p*sses me off with stuff - you try and do the right thing and it still makes no difference. There's one capacitor left on the board, so i'll change that out too and see what happens. Other than that i have no clue what it could be. The timing of the circtuit is based on the capacitor charging, it's as simple as that. There's nothing else to it. WTF else could it be. Gonna get a replacement for the 2nd capacitor today. Then spend some time taking apart the bottom of the dash again for the 3rd time. It prrobably won't make any difference. 