"Mike" wrote in message
...
In article 1YJ5e.3609$H_5.1653@trnddc01,
James Sweet wrote:
Most of the ones I have will pop apart
with a scredriver at the seam between the upper and lower section of the
ballast housing.

If you're really lucky, failed ones will pop themselves apart along the
seam, to facilitate you repairing them. It's a design feature, I think

A couple of ones I've had have failed like that: A loud bang, a smell
of burnt toffee/toast, which seems to come from the epoxy-like substance
used to seal inside them. Yum. Obviously the crack in the side let the
smoke out ... not opened one yet to see what went.


Those are electrolytic cap failures for sure, there's no epoxy holding them
together but when a capacitor really goes it can blow it's top and knock
things out of the way. Never had that happen but it sounds exciting.