The Hall of Shame - Badcaps Photo Montage

[PeteS in CA]

So the first pic is an example of Decontamination?

[Pentium4]

Rubycon MCZ after 40K hours powering a P4 Northwood with terrible ventilation. Poor things. I wonder if those KZG are out of spec, I didn't bother pulling them to test.

[Pentium4]

CapXon with a Panasonic vent?! The other strange thing is it says it's GL series. In their datasheet, it says GL series only ranges from 6.3V-63V. This one is 100µF 450V

[ben7]

Originally Posted by Pentium4

CapXon with a Panasonic vent?! The other strange thing is it says it's GL series. In their datasheet, it says GL series only ranges from 6.3V-63V. This one is 100µF 450V

I've seen some with that vent style before.

I might still have one sitting around, I will check tomorrow!

[ben7]

Yep, indeed I do have one (actually a pair)!

Here it is!

It's a '470uF 200V', GS series, 22x35.5 (mm)

Strange thing is, in the CapXon datasheet for the GS series, there is no 470uF 200V in that size!!! It does have one in 18x41 though.

~~~

!!!OMG-OMG-OMG!!!
I just measured it's capacitance, and it is about 360uF. The second cap in this pair reads about the same.
Interestingly, the datasheet DOES list a 200V unit in this size which is 330uF...
Very fishy!!!

[lexwalker]

First image attached - from HP w2228h LCD monitor. Those are Samxon GK series capacitors which are ultra low ESR type. The most suitable would be Panasonic FM series for the same capacitance and voltage rating.

Second image attached - another HP LCD monitor, this time a w1907. Again Samxon GK series ultra low ESR capacitors, plus one Su'scon SG series which is a very low ESR capacitor also.

[Pentium4]

Originally Posted by ben7

Yep, indeed I do have one (actually a pair)!

Here it is!

It's a '470uF 200V', GS series, 22x35.5 (mm)

Strange thing is, in the CapXon datasheet for the GS series, there is no 470uF 200V in that size!!! It does have one in 18x41 though.

~~~

!!!OMG-OMG-OMG!!!
I just measured it's capacitance, and it is about 360uF. The second cap in this pair reads about the same.
Interestingly, the datasheet DOES list a 200V unit in this size which is 330uF...
Very fishy!!!

Thanks for sharing. WOW! I wouldn't be surprised if they just edited the label! It's weird because normally their high voltage caps have the regular "cross" style vent

[whiz62]

This doesn't have anything to do with electronics caps, but I thought this was pretty cool. A customer brought this in for a replacement for his table saw. Said it scared the hell out of him when it went.

We sell a ton of start and run caps for motors but I never saw one like this.

[ben7]

Originally Posted by whiz62

This doesn't have anything to do with electronics caps, but I thought this was pretty cool. A customer brought this in for a replacement for his table saw. Said it scared the hell out of him when it went.

We sell a ton of start and run caps for motors but I never saw one like this.

Eh, it does have to do with caps though!

Like, here is one blowing up (on a pump motor)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftwq0uyx3LQ

His reaction is soo funny, I'd probably react like that too :P

[Pentium4]

These YC caps I've only seen in PSU's built by KME, but also one instance in an Andyson unit. There isn't a date code or series info anywhere on the cap, they look insanely generic. Anyone know about these? This one is still in spec, it was on the filtering side of +5V, physically touching the main toroid coil



This 100µF 400V cap was pulled out of a dead Rayovac 90W laptop adapter. it reads 86µF. I've only ever seen this brand on a cheap chinese sound card, looks like "ezwx" ?

Originally Posted by whiz62

This doesn't have anything to do with electronics caps, but I thought this was pretty cool. A customer brought this in for a replacement for his table saw. Said it scared the hell out of him when it went.

We sell a ton of start and run caps for motors but I never saw one like this.

Wow! That happened during normal operation?

[Pentium4]

I almost forgot these two glorious brands discovered in a Sun Pro. mtcon and Hiray. They must really just buy whatever is cheapest at the time I've probably seen at least 20 different capacitor companies in various Sun Pro PSU's

[chozo4]

Wish I had taken pictures but I've long scrapped the PSU. I had purchased an IDE to USB enclosure for $14 which I planned to pull the board out and use internally for the CD-Rom drive. Seems typical IDE-Sata adaptors simply cannot handle read/write cues for a CDRom.

Anywho, I pulled the back out with the board still protected and all looked well. Didn't check the inline switching supply it came with but I was already uneasy that the cord was so flimsy. The whole thing was light and 'made in china' and worked quite well... the first time I used it for 10 minutes that is. The next time I used it for a good 15 minutes and stopped working. Took out the USB adapter and the 120gb hard drive that was attached to it via 'click of death'... RIP.

Opened it up and found several things went wrong. The output decoupler cap was completely swollen top and bottom with the bung pushed almost completely out. It was an unbranded 'LOW ESR' 25v 470UF capacitor.. and I could visually see why it went. Not only was it swollen but the cap had gotten so hot the output for the +12v line was melted through the label to the metal sleeve of the cap and the 1/8w resistor that handles the voltage divider transistor was burnt away into 2 pieces.

Voltage output... 40v on the +12v, 0v on the +5v. Really wish I had a picture of the whole thing. The seller tried to stiff me on the refund too... only giving me back 20% of the cost not counting shipping till I chewed them up to 90%. Too bad it wouldn't revive the lost hard drive as they were more focused on me 'hooking it up wrong' or 'incompatible hard drive attachment' when it was their power source that went. They actually went on to tell me to 'try a different drive and hook it up proper' when I told them which marked components on their PSU failed spectacularly.

Originally Posted by whiz62

This doesn't have anything to do with electronics caps, but I thought this was pretty cool. A customer brought this in for a replacement for his table saw. Said it scared the hell out of him when it went.

We sell a ton of start and run caps for motors but I never saw one like this.

The first thing that came to mind was "Feed me Seymore... FEEEED MEEEEE". That's just plain creepy as ever!

[Pentium4]

You know these cheap Jwco caps?


I finally found their site: http://www.fulik.net/html/

[pdavid]

I was sorting through capacitors and found a few unused Capxon lz rolling around. And they are all buldged and vented. Nothing new I guess. Just storing these on room temperature kills them...

Also a dead Teapo LH from a the primary of and FSP400-80GLN. I have only seen Capxon do this kind of failure.

[Pentium4]

Wow, that's pretty crazy that the CapXon bulged without use. What is the date code on them? Did you by chance do any capacitance or ESR measurements on the Teapo LH cap?

[pdavid]

Capxon date code is C532. I think I bought it around 2006. The Teapo has corroded, loose anode tab. I've only seen this issue with Capxon. Practically no capacitance can be read. Maybe a few pF.

[momaka]

Originally Posted by pdavid

Also a dead Teapo LH from a the primary of and FSP400-80GLN. I have only seen Capxon do this kind of failure.

I wonder if APFC has anything to do with killing these lower quality caps on the input, because (generally) PSUs without APFC and crappy input caps seem to do fine.

I'm also a bit surprised with those CapXons. Teapo with 8 mm diameter and smaller are the only ones I know to do this on a regular basis (i.e. just pull them out of some used equipment and after a year or so, some of them will bulge all by themselves while sitting unused).

[wacce]

I believe this fits into the hall of shame very well. I went and repaired a couple of 7.5V 900mA DC wall warts that couldn't deliver enough power (and made the router "ticking"), both made by the same manufacturer SPEC LIN.

They have a single capacitor at the output, which by no surprise was the problem. They used a non branded 2200uF 16V caps with a 105°C temp rating, and only marking to indicate the series is "TE". They have CDXXX-markings, which lets you know they are Chinese made at least, somewhat lowish ESR I assume? First one measured 137uF, clearly bulged, in the first pic. The second one was the really shameful one; the capacitor seems to have been damaged at the time of assembly, but they used it anyway! It now has two holes where the electrolyte has escaped, and it measured a round 0uF. That cap is still in place in the second pic. That is really cheap even for Chinese electronics

Replaced the cap with Teapo SC 2200uF 10V for now, both seem to work without problems. I noticed that the output voltage climbs to around 12V when no device is attached, so I'll be using them only when attached to something.

[Pentium4]

TE is the brand and CDXXX is the series. Generic chinese caps no doubt. I can't believe that cap was damaged from the factory, never seen that before. It's normal for the voltage to climb like that with no load

[wacce]

Originally Posted by Pentium4

TE is the brand and CDXXX is the series. Generic chinese caps no doubt. I can't believe that cap was damaged from the factory, never seen that before. It's normal for the voltage to climb like that with no load

Good to know, never seen the TE brand before. I don't see that there's any wiggle room inside the case, as the transformer is kept in place by the plastic shell. Therefore I don't see that even dropping the thing would cause such damage to the cap, and my conclusion was that this must have happened at the factory.

I was aware that it's normal for the output voltage to climb without load, but didn't expect it to go over 10V. The current 2200uF 10V cap won't probably like it if it's standing on ~12V for extended periods of time.