How to find whether the capacitor is working not?

[Izzy]

I wanted to know what is the best way to know whether a capacitor pulled out from an audio device is working or not? Can we just put multimeter at Volt and check? Or is there any other better way.
Does extra heat degrade the caps?

[brett]

Hi
Heat degrades electrolytic caps.  Film and other caps are less affected.
To test it, you need two tests:
1.  use it to connect between two leads and see whether a signal is passed.  ie plug a lead into an amp and another to your guitar.  Ensuring the earths are connected, use the cap to join the tips.  If signal passes, it isn't dead.
2.  use a DMM to measure resistance across the cap.  Resistance will rise slowly to a high value (megohms) is the cap is blocking DC.

If it passes these two tests, there's a good chancce that it's working.
cheers

[Izzy]

Thanks for reply.

So if cap degrades then I guess its basically better to use new caps for effect project.
Else I had tons of caps taken out from other non-working dvd players.haha