AC Went Out This Morning

Yep...Around 4am...Noticed it was getting warm in the house...Went to adjust the thermostat and NOTHING....Perfect timing too with the heat wave among us....Turned my bedroom fan up a notch in order to get a little more sleep as nothing I could do about it then....Finally got up and got me some coffee....After that first cup, the DIY'er in me was ready to go!...Decided to test the AC blower motor fan and see if that was working....Put it on fan, and sure enough it started blowing so the fan and its relay work...Good news there...Usually will be only one other common thing wrong....So I went out back to visit the condenser unit...Turned off the entire AC unit at the breaker box, opened the side panel on the condenser unit, and took some pictures of the run capacitor for its specifications...After a short discussion with my good buddy Google, and a little online shopping, I located the correct replacement capacitor at the local Home Depot...It was $45 and in-stock....Yeah, I could have "ordered" one for $25 but I had no time to wait...I figured I may as well throw caution to the wind and just change the thing myself...If it worked, BINGO...If not, I'll call someone to service it still have comfort knowing the unit will be using a new capacitor...So I ran down to HD and picked one up....Came back and pulled the old one off(yes I discharged it first for those "in the know")....The old one looked good but had a slight bulge at the bottom, which isn't a good sign...I decided to test it with my Multi-meter just to make sure it was probably bad....The new one showed evidence of charging....But the old one showed open circuit on all connections...So I was pretty confident it was bad....Installed the new one, turned on the AC breaker....Turned on the AC....Started like a champ, and much quicker than it has been lately....Took me all of 3 hours including research and even cooking breakfast...Actual replacement was around 20 mins...Spent $45 and some gas to drive to HD and back...Loves me some DIY...Saved a few hundred dollas!....WINNING!!

@EddyFree :
Good deal, I've been there and did the same. Easiest fix on the system, quick bracket and plug. Sometimes I haven't been so luck but... That's always my first try if the condenser fan isn't running...

@EddyFree : Good deal!
Check your cameras, though. I heard about TV meteorologists going out and swapping out people's AC components with bad parts to get back at people who diss them online.

@EddyFree: I had a coworker once who always seemed to get pleasure from discharging a capacitor. But the question I have for you, do you know the nmemonic for color codes on the capacitor?

@Enzo : Nope....Took a couple of pictures of the whole thing....The yellow wires connect to the "Common" terminal, the brown wire to the "Fan" terminal, and the blue wire to the "HERM"(compressor) terminal....

Easiest way to discharge those capacitors is sticking them on your tongue like a 9 volt