The Hall of Shame - Badcaps Photo Montage

[momaka]

Originally Posted by Heihachi_73

The aforementioned Rubycon YKs that I ripped out of a smashed 2001 Sony Trinitron TV were still closer to the sleeve rating (470µF/25V) than the S.I. "Low ESR" caps which even had higher ESR than the general purpose 85°C Rubycons, never mind the fact that the Trinitron most likely had upwards of ten years use before the analog TV reception was switched off in Australia.

I have a few of those Nichicon VZ and Rubycon YK in my stash, too - came from some smashed Sony Trinitron TV's, just like yours. Not a single bad one yet. I typically use them in amplifiers and audio circuits, though. They'll probably work there forever.

Originally Posted by Wester547

Those findings aren’t consistent with mine, actually.

In many GPS-350 series units, for an example (made in 2005 or thereabouts), I found that it’s always the CapXon GL on the +12V rail (or +5VSB) that’s bad whilst the LTEC LTG/LZG and Taicon PW are almost always fine.

Yes, in older OEM units (before 2006-2007, I think), Ltec used to not be that bad. But after those years, I think Ltec really took a nosedive in their quality (or whatever was left of it).
Meanwhile, CapXon is still crap and no one can tell when they will fail (typically sooner rather than later). Teapo is... meh. too

In short, I agree that it's pointless to discuss them. They are all pretty bad. But I still think some are worse than others. And that's worth knowing IMO, because at least for me, there are cases where I can't recap everything and need to make a choice which one of these brands I can leave behind for a few more years of service and which should I recap right away. Ideally, I would recap all crap brands, but sometimes either the customer/person who I am doing the repair for and/or personal finances and time just don't allow me to replace all those crap caps. So in those cases, it's usually Taicon, Teapo, Su'scon, and Elite that usually get to wait for a bit longer while CapXon and Ltec usually get booted out.

[Behemot]

Would not trust Elite ever, especially them input high-voltage ones.

As for Samwha quality, just got some Siemens or similar analog security-camera digitizers (with integrated HDD and another external connection for SCSi cluster ). Powered by 12 V line, there was some board, probably with buck DC-DC modules, every single one of them in each device is bloated. And those are quite large caps. I said many times and still say I don't even trust these Samwha/Samyoung koreans, they never managed to make a good cap and probably never will…

[Wester547]

Originally Posted by momaka

In short, I agree that it's pointless to discuss them. They are all pretty bad. But I still think some are worse than others. And that's worth knowing IMO, because at least for me, there are cases where I can't recap everything and need to make a choice which one of these brands I can leave behind for a few more years of service and which should I recap right away. Ideally, I would recap all crap brands, but sometimes either the customer/person who I am doing the repair for and/or personal finances and time just don't allow me to replace all those crap caps. So in those cases, it's usually Taicon, Teapo, Su'scon, and Elite that usually get to wait for a bit longer while CapXon and Ltec usually get booted out.

I’ve seen many Su’scon fail in LCD monitors, and bulging and leaking Su’scon aren’t a stranger to me in older Hipro PSUs. So I would not rank them much higher than Teapo/CapXon/LTEC. Elite are also failure-prone, but I *have* found that their ultra low-impedance series (EB) has a *slightly* lower failure rate than NCC’s KZG series (those made before 2008) at least....

Originally Posted by Behemot

Would not trust Elite ever, especially them input high-voltage ones.

As for Samwha quality, just got some Siemens or similar analog security-camera digitizers (with integrated HDD and another external connection for SCSi cluster ). Powered by 12 V line, there was some board, probably with buck DC-DC modules, every single one of them in each device is bloated. And those are quite large caps. I said many times and still say I don't even trust these Samwha/Samyoung koreans, they never managed to make a good cap and probably never will…

Samwha’s low impedance series (WB, XC, VA, WL, etc) are crap. Right down there with CapXon with how high a failure rate they have in LCD TVs and what not. Samyoung’s low impedance series are also pretty bad - they fail very often on Winfast/Foxconn socket AM2 motherboards and on older Albatron socket 754 boards too (NXC series), and bad Samyoung NXB in LCD TVs is not uncommon. For whatever reason, their general purpose series fare better, although they are not impervious to failure (but what is? ).

[Behemot]

I mentioned that on purpose as many people here would put both of them in the "better ones among the bad". For me it's just crap and utter crap, but I usually don't have the time nor the mood to differentiate what's what

[Ageve]

Originally Posted by momaka

Typical.
Also, I second what Behemot says about the controller stuck in PIO mode. I had that happen a few times as well. If the HDD is not making any weird noises when opening files and is just slow, it's probably a controller speed issue.

Unfortunately the HDD was almost dead.

It took ~10 minutes before it was recognized by Windows (connected to a USB HDD dock). All the data could be copied, but it was very slow.

I've had hard drives fail because of bad PSUs before (Crapxon and Jenpo caps).

[Heihachi_73]

My ADSL2 router died two days ago. I hacked apart the wall wart to find two bulged Su'scon caps and an obliterated 8-pin IC. Replaced the 12V DC c/pos 0.5A wall wart with a random Delta one (same voltage and polarity but 1.25A) and all is well.

[Behemot]

That's normal situation, the first and last thing anybody cares about with these things is price. Even of they use quality brands - as they usually don't - they use GP series like Samxon KM, NCC KMG. Those often get bad. Just opened few of such nonworking PSUs of different rated power specs, found exactly this: bulging KM, KMG with electroded corroded off…brands like Canon, Cisco, Sunny. It was not utter garbage acutely dangerous to use, but not that far from it either.

[TechGeek]

Originally Posted by Heihachi_73

My ADSL2 router died two days ago. I hacked apart the wall wart to find two bulged Su'scon caps and an obliterated 8-pin IC. Replaced the 12V DC c/pos 0.5A wall wart with a random Delta one (same voltage and polarity but 1.25A) and all is well.

I'd just hog an adapter out of my stash of around 200 adapters (no joke).

[RukyCon]

3x Nippon Chemi-Com KZG 2200uf 6.3v
These are part of a PSU in a (Scraped) DVR.

[PeteS in CA]

And the KZEs are doing just fine, unsurprisingly.

[momaka]

Originally Posted by PeteS in CA

And the KZEs are doing just fine, unsurprisingly.

As usual.

And this is nothing. I have a Dell Dimension E5150 motherboard littered with KZG caps of a few different sizes. But not like that matters - they are all bad/bulged. What's even more funny is that some of these KZG caps are in low-stress spots (like next to PCI connectors) and there are 85C Chemicon SME (general purpose) caps sitting right next to them - all fine, of course.

[Wester547]

KZG never fail to well... fail. Only Sacon/GSC, Rulycon/Jee/YEC, and some really dodgy brands that gained notoriety in the early 2000s (Chhsi, Jackcon, Fuhyin, etc) actually seem to be worse.

[PeteS in CA]

Originally Posted by momaka

As usual.

And this is nothing. I have a Dell Dimension E5150 motherboard littered with KZG caps of a few different sizes. But not like that matters - they are all bad/bulged. What's even more funny is that some of these KZG caps are in low-stress spots (like next to PCI connectors) and there are 85C Chemicon SME (general purpose) caps sitting right next to them - all fine, of course.

The torture tests I was doing 10 years ago (two employers ago, now) were very different from real life MB conditions, but I found KZEs very tough, and KZGs and KZJs remarkably awful. NCC/UCC F'ed up somehow with those two series.

[RukyCon]

Capxon GL 1000uf 16v

This was inside a 12v power supply i got for a 1$. I'll most likely replace all three Capxon GL caps on the power supply with whatever i have on hand.

[PeteS in CA]

Looks like a discontinuous flyback, definitely a stressful application. PW and LXZ look to be similar impedance.

[Heihachi_73]

The only good use for CapXon caps is hooking them up to AC and watching them pop. They belong in the bin along with Chinese Duracell batteries.

[RukyCon]

The thing is, this is the second time i've opened up one of these power supplies to find a failed Capxon GL cap.

So far, the capacitors i have on hand that i think might be able to replace this capacitor is a 1000uf 25v Sam Young KME, a 1000uf 16v Junfu WG, and a 1000uf 16v Rubycon YXJ. (i'm not sure if i want to use the Rubycon since i'm not sure how often i need to use this power supply).

[RJARRRPCGP]

Is it just me, or are mid-2000s' Fuhjyyu caps the worst of Fuhjyyu caps? I swore that the most bad Fuhjyyu caps I saw, were in mid-2000s' Antec PSUs!

[Heihachi_73]

Well, they're Fuhjyyu so it's almost a given...

That said, I have a 2010-dated 420W Thermal Master TM-420-PMSR (the same one that HWI blew up in their tests) with Fuhjyyu mains and who knows what else inside (I can see the Fuhjyyu logo through the grille, haven't looked inside yet) and it's still running without any issues despite running 24/7 since 2012.

These days they're probably a step above CapXon, although I still wouldn't trust them in expensive machines.

[Dannyx]

Found this in an ATX supply and I thought it might be interesting: not sure if that white "fog" is directly related to the bulged cap, but I believe it is, since I haven't seen anything like that so far...what is that ? Has anybody seen this before ? :| Does electrolyte "vape" like that ?