GQ 3151 w/ Macron model MPT-251 PS

[tmwalsh]

I am not sure where this should go, so please advise.... move as necessary.
.................

I have two GQ's that are twins, purchased from Fry's. They both have the Macron PS. One box was getting blue screens and lockups. The other appeared normal, but it was not used nearly as much.
I removed the power supply and immediately noticed a half dozen 2200 uF 10v capacitors that ALL appeared to have bulged tops and a brownish deposit. There were no letters or labels other than weird looking G L. The G has a short extension at the base and the L has a longer extensions. Sort of like this:
G_L____ with a slight curl up at the very end. Marked 105C
They also had some white material I assumed was glue to hold them in place for soldering.

I replaced the caps with 2200uF 16v 105C caps with a H sitting on a circle or oval, which I had ordered from Acme Enterprises in FL.

From the short life, Nov 2006 to Jan 2009, I assume the caps are not very high quality. I emphasize that the second machine, not used very much at all, probably less than 20 hours, had the same appearance as the machine use in daily basis.


The caps I used for replacement were of a larger diameter than the originals, ~3/8" vs ~ 1/2", so they did not sit down on the pcb, and were more or less left on longer leads raised a bit from the board in some cases.
Did I just buy a little time, or did I use decent caps. I guess if they cannot put their name on the product, it is not of high quality.


I have not looked at the motherboards, but they are ECS model 741GX-M2.
tom

[Newbie2]

Re: GQ 3151 w/ Macron model MPT-251 PS

I am not sure where this should go, so please advise.... move as necessary.
.................

I have two GQ's that are twins, purchased from Fry's. They both have the Macron PS. One box was getting blue screens and lockups. The other appeared normal, but it was not used nearly as much.
I removed the power supply and immediately noticed a half dozen 2200 uF 10v capacitors that ALL appeared to have bulged tops and a brownish deposit. There were no letters or labels other than weird looking G L. The G has a short extension at the base and the L has a longer extensions. Sort of like this:
G_L____ with a slight curl up at the very end. Marked 105C
They also had some white material I assumed was glue to hold them in place for soldering.

I replaced the caps with 2200uF 16v 105C caps with a H sitting on a circle or oval, which I had ordered from Acme Enterprises in FL.

From the short life, Nov 2006 to Jan 2009, I assume the caps are not very high quality. I emphasize that the second machine, not used very much at all, probably less than 20 hours, had the same appearance as the machine use in daily basis.


The caps I used for replacement were of a larger diameter than the originals, ~3/8" vs ~ 1/2", so they did not sit down on the pcb, and were more or less left on longer leads raised a bit from the board in some cases.
Did I just buy a little time, or did I use decent caps. I guess if they cannot put their name on the product, it is not of high quality.


I have not looked at the motherboards, but they are ECS model 741GX-M2.
tom

I'm guessing the failed capacitors that you replaced were "Goldlink" brand capacitors. Here is the logo that the "Goldlink" brand of capacitors uses:


Your replacement capacitors are not of a brand that is common, but with some research online, I think that you might have Chinese "Huayu" capacitors. Here is that brand's logo:


A picture of Huayu brand capacitors:


The link to the Huayu brand capacitor website (English): http://www.cn-huayue.com/en/about.htm

I haven't heard anything about that brand of capacitors you used to replace your faulty capacitors.

If your power supply is working for now, I'd say they are buying you time to get high quality capacitors from known brands such as Rubycon, Panasonic, Nichicon, United Chemi-con, and Sanyo. But since I don't know anything or have any experience regarding the capacitors that you used, if they work for a good amount of time (like a few months or a year) then I'd say they're decent for what you're using them for.

However, if possible, I still recommend you get high quality replacement capacitors from the known brands I mentioned before.

[linuxguru]

Re: GQ 3151 w/ Macron model MPT-251 PS

GL are known bad, no surprise there. I wonder if Huayu is related to the "Saturn" brand that is encountered frequently in cheap PSUs like Deer and Powmax, since the logos bear a passing resemblance to each other - "Saturn" is also a known crap cap.

[Newbie2]

Re: GQ 3151 w/ Macron model MPT-251 PS

I wonder if Huayu is related to the "Saturn" brand that is encountered frequently in cheap PSUs like Deer and Powmax, since the logos bear a passing resemblance to each other - "Saturn" is also a known crap cap.

The "Saturn" brand is probably "YC" which is from "YANG-CHUN ELECTRONICS FACTORY" (no website).



I have a "Saturn" cap, and here are two pictures of it:



It is "TK" series I'd assume judging from the cap, and the Huayu capacitor brand I mentioned earlier has two TK series on their website, with descriptions that would sound reasonable for the "Saturn" brand capacitor I have.



If the Chinese "Huayu" capacitor brand is related to the "Saturn" YC brand, then I would recommend that tmwalsh get good capacitors for his power supplies as soon as possible to avoid another failure of capacitors.

[tmwalsh]

Re: GQ 3151 w/ Macron model MPT-251 PS

Ummh, Does adding a few(6) more volts tolerance increase the longevity? I hope.

The G_L__ symbol is right on. The PS itself appeared to have decent layout and assembly compared to the pics I saw in the other section. Just picked one(so far) bad component source.

The symbol for the H in a circle is very close to the caps listed. It is my eyes that are so cr*ppy, but I think you are right on the money.
Acme in FL seems to be a small organization that is responsive. They do not list their capacitor by manufacturer, so I'd guess if I want brands mentioned above, I have get another supplier.
tom
added:
The H-circle caps have NO series or other marking other than a "-40+105c" imprint directly under the logo. BTW, the logo has the "R in a circle" indicating it is trademarked. If they went so far as to trademark their logo, they must 1)believe it is worth something or 2)want customers to believe #1...
I kind of trust ACME, as their newsletter/sales flyer is plain text with no apparent bogosity. The items on 'sale' are various and are marked down from their website prices. Shipping costs are decent too. No, I don't own stock.
acme-sales.net on the web. Low key, low budget, down to earth. Maybe I am being duped, so what's new???

tom

[Newbie2]

Re: GQ 3151 w/ Macron model MPT-251 PS

Ummh, Does adding a few(6) more volts tolerance increase the longevity? I hope.

The G_L__ symbol is right on. The PS itself appeared to have decent layout and assembly compared to the pics I saw in the other section. Just picked one(so far) bad component source.

The symbol for the H in a circle is very close to the caps listed. It is my eyes that are so cr*ppy, but I think you are right on the money.
Acme in FL seems to be a small organization that is responsive. They do not list their capacitor by manufacturer, so I'd guess if I want brands mentioned above, I have get another supplier.
tom

Since the original capacitors were rated at 10V, chances are they would be on either the +3.3V or +5V rails of your power supply. A capacitor rated at 16V would not be stressed on either those two rails.

I know one supplier, Digikey (www.digikey.com), which sells high-quality Panasonic, United Chemi-con, and Nichicon capacitors.

[tmwalsh]

Re: GQ 3151 w/ Macron model MPT-251 PS

I have purchased from Digikey in the past with no problems. I am rounding up a list of needed caps for my herd of old RCA CTC169 chassis, and just might order from them.

I went to the Changzhou Huayue site, and poked around. If they are truly an ISO firm, then they have a process that is documented and has been inspected for compliance. ISO compliance is not a cheap thing to get, requiring inspectors to validate process, and it can be revoked if it is found that the Co is not following the procedures. You can make a concrete life preserver and it can be ISO-9001 compliant. They document the process, not the product, but if the process is good, the product will be good too. Waste of time and money for a fly-by-night company because it is expensive and requires documentable process, not Uncle Ling Zhou adding a few extra kilos of dried goat droppings to make the batch weigh correct...
Guess I will find out how well they do. Think I might put the Blue ESR to work again.
tom

[momaka]

Re: GQ 3151 w/ Macron model MPT-251 PS

Macron power supplies are usually good and worth the recaping.
Also make sure to replace any caps that might be rated 25v 22uF, 25v 47uF, 50v 22uF, or 50v 47uF.
If you order caps from Digikey, they have FC and FM (Panasonic), PW and HE (Nichicon), and KY, KZE, LXY, and LXZ (United Chemicon). Those are all 105C low-ESR caps suitable for power supplies.

[jpdoe]

Re: GQ 3151 w/ Macron model MPT-251 PS

Hi all.
I'm trying to learn which of the small caps present on most PSUs are worth recapping.
Would someone be so kind as to explain which caps is Momaka aiming at with the specs he gave? (22uf or 47uf, 25v or 50v). Are those the filter caps present on the 5vsb feedback loop Everell mentioned on another thread?

[Newbie2]

Re: GQ 3151 w/ Macron model MPT-251 PS

Hi all.
I'm trying to learn which of the small caps present on most PSUs are worth recapping.
Would someone be so kind as to explain which caps is Momaka aiming at with the specs he gave? (22uf or 47uf, 25v or 50v). Are those the filter caps present on the 5vsb feedback loop Everell mentioned on another thread?

I guess if you see little capacitors in your power supply around the values that momaka said, just replace them.

[jpdoe]

Re: GQ 3151 w/ Macron model MPT-251 PS

Ok. I'll give it a try. It will be a good way to practice soldering.

[momaka]

Re: GQ 3151 w/ Macron model MPT-251 PS

Hi all.
I'm trying to learn which of the small caps present on most PSUs are worth recapping... Are those the filter caps present on the 5vsb feedback loop Everell mentioned on another thread?

Yes. They're usually around the 5vsb transformer or primary side next to the 5vsb transistor.

[jpdoe]

Re: GQ 3151 w/ Macron model MPT-251 PS

Thanks, Momaka. I've been wondering about those caps for a while now.

[linuxguru]

Re: GQ 3151 w/ Macron model MPT-251 PS

It would seem that Huayu and YC (Saturn) are related entities - they have similar logos, and similar gold-on-black colour schemes, similar series (TK) and probably similar specs.

As has been mentioned, ISO 9001 is a process certification, and is no guarantee of product quality. They could be making concrete life-jackets, and still retain an ISO 9001 certification as long as they have the paperwork and a process for contacting the next-of-kin. These ISO certifications are hugely popular in China and other Asian companies which work on price-arbitrage - in the absence of a differentiator on the basis of product quality, they use the certification instead as a selling point.

[tmwalsh]

Re: GQ 3151 w/ Macron model MPT-251 PS

linuxguru, can't say if they are saturn related or not. the caps i have are black in color with white stripe and lettering. looking at the site, i think they are TR, TF or TK series. I did not load the chinese character set/font, so don't know if the description matches exactly the CY (saturn) description.

momaka: I did not find any caps in the 22 or 47uf range and none at 25 or 50 volts. There were 4 = 10uf/50 scattered, 3 = 1uf/50 near the regulator IC and comparator IC, 2 = 220uf/16(-12v out), 1 - 470uf/16 between the heatsinkd, 6 = 2200/10(2 5v, 1 3.3vout), 1 = 3300uf/16(12v out) and 2 = 470uf/200 input caps.
I *think* they are all the Goldlink brand except for the 2 =470/200v, but none have gold colored markings, and there are two colors (orange and blue) for the 1uf/50v. The two 470's are Fuhjyyu.

I replaced the 6 2200/10's, and found that the 3300/16 is bulging at the top. I didn't notice the bulge until I had replaced the 6 2200's. The machine did not boot. The fans started to turn, and then shut off. I disconnected the HDD's, and the machine booted. That removed the 12v load. I then found the 3300 bulge, and figured that my re-cap was successful (for the 5v), but I needed to find a 3300 replacement to get the 12v back on line. This PS has likely less than 100 hours of use total, and the caps were bulged and had brown exudate on the top.
After reading the posts, I took the inventory of caps as noted above.

Would it be useful to replace all the Goldlink and Fuhjyyu caps even though they show no evidence of failure? From what I have gathered, they are likely signal cleanup rather than 'load bearing' caps. [my description...]

tom

[rolexwatch]

Look at watches.

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[370forlife]

Re: Look at watches.

Look at watches. Look at watches.

wat