I recently replaced a couple of electrolytics in a flat screen TV for a customer. The caps were in the power supply and were of course rated for 105 degrees C. So this brought to mind a question. Could this possibly be an operating temperature? Or is it a storage temperature? Or perhaps it's an internal temperature? It would seem like it would have to be a very high frequency component to ever cause an electrolytic to ever approach anything like this. Could one of these parts rated as such actually get this hot and remain operational? Would this actually be within prudent design parameters for the device? In theory if the caps are not actually operating at even 85 degrees C then why wouldn't you be able to use a lower rated temperature cap for that application?

It would seem to me that if a piece of equipment were designed to run a capacitor that hot or even at 85 degrees C for whatever reason then in my mind that would certainly constitute a very poor design. I have been repairing TV's for many years and the only capacitors I've ever seen get too hot to touch were bad ones. Could someone please explain this rating to me? Thanks, Lenny