On Aug 17, 3:41*am, "Martin Riddle" wrote:
"larry moe 'n curly" wrote in ...

When I come across a burnt resistor, I usually replace it with one
rated for twice the wattage as the original, but I was told it's
sometimes bad to do that. *Why? *I'm not referring to fuse resistors
but ordinary carbon composition resistors.

No, it shouldn't be a problem. Different wattage is usually associated
with size.
If the resistor was 'cooked' then it was running at or beyond it's
rating. Which means there was something else in the circuit that is
defective.

Most resistors are metal film nowadays, carbon comps are hard to come
by.
(But Carbon comps do handle peak currents much better than metal films.)

Cheers

fwiw most TH parts are carbon film
Carbon comp, at least from the suppliers I use, are horribly
expensive. Just due to the small market for them I guess, they
certainly used to be the cheapest.


NT