Any more info on counterfeit Nichicons?

[PeteS in CA]

Re: Any more info on counterfeit Nichicons?

...
... However, note the green-sleeved Chemicon KZE 10V, 2200 uF caps above. UCC used green sleeves on the KZE series very early in their production years. ...

The KZE series caps I tested in 2005 while at Curtis Instruments had green sleeves. Your memory of the time frame is correct. IIRC, KZE series parts I tested later (2005-2008 and part of January 2009) had the usual Chemicon-brown sleeving.

[kc8adu]

Re: Any more info on counterfeit Nichicons?

recent finds.
high probability of counterfeits.

[PeteS in CA]

Re: Any more info on counterfeit Nichicons?

I've not seen Nichicon caps with concentric circle bungs. The PT series is a higher voltage series, IIRC, so it might be different. Their usual bung is designed to permit flux cleaning agents to flow through, so I doubt Nichicon would use the concentric circle style of bung.

[momaka]

Re: Any more info on counterfeit Nichicons?

I have some Nichicon PT caps pulled from a Nichicon-built PS3 PSU... but unfortunately, I don't have those caps where I am right now. Can check in a few months... though if memory serves me right, the genuine PT did have proper bungs typical for Nichicon and not the concentric style bung. So yeah... those could be fake indeed. The sleeve looks fairly good, though. Maybe re-sleeved with ones from real Nichicon PT caps? But then, that begs the question: who / which sweat shop would be dumb enough to scrap real Nichicon PT caps only for their sleeves and put it on some low quality garbage?

Personally, I'd rather re-use an old Japanese GP cap any day than a re-sleeved no-name garbage.

BTW, good to see you here KC8ADU!

[stj]

Re: Any more info on counterfeit Nichicons?

they dont use the old sleeves,
you cab buy reels of sleeve for fake caps and 18650's on aliexpress.
all you need is scissors and a heat gun

[Per Hansson]

Re: Any more info on counterfeit Nichicons?

I've not seen Nichicon caps with concentric circle bungs. The PT series is a higher voltage series, IIRC, so it might be different. Their usual bung is designed to permit flux cleaning agents to flow through, so I doubt Nichicon would use the concentric circle style of bung.

I have some here, I actually bought them on eBay but they don't have the cheap bung so you can be sure the ones posted by kc8adu are fake...

[PeteS in CA]

Re: Any more info on counterfeit Nichicons?

I have some here, I actually bought them on eBay but they don't have the cheap bung so you can be sure the ones posted by kc8adu are fake...

Since the style of bung Nichicon uses has an intended function, I couldn't see a reason they would not use it. I miss the days when counterfeits were obvious because the sleeve was the wrong color or the font was wrong or the things smelled like rotting fish.

[AleXis6]

Re: Any more info on counterfeit Nichicons?

the concentric style bung

maybe someone has seen which capacitors brand have such a bottom with circles ?

[andrewsawesomr]

Re: Any more info on counterfeit Nichicons?

maybe someone has seen which capacitors brand have such a bottom with circles ?

AiSHi has that type of bung, although they have an NCC-style vent.

[kc8adu]

Re: Any more info on counterfeit Nichicons?

here are the replacements from digikey.

[Kabir85]

Re: Any more info on counterfeit Nichicons?

here are the replacements from digikey.

Hi, bought 2x PT 450V 150Uf off Aliexpress seller obviously says original and pretty much all the specs match the datasheets for PTs except the length its 36.46 to 36.3mm instead of 40mm. So original or fake?

[momaka]

@ Kabir85: I think those are legitimate.... or at least I have not seen fake/counterfeit ones that can copy the original Nichicon rubber bung.
The datecode also looks real. Looks like these were produced in week 23 of year 2020. The letter in front indicated the COO (Country of Origin - i.e. where the cap was made.) I forgot what all of them are, but I think "C" is for China and B is for Malaysia (can't find the datasheet where I previously found this info, so if someone does, please correct me if I'm wrong.) The one I know for sure is "H" is for Japan.

In regards to the shorter height: it's possible these might have been custom ordered by someone (electronics manufacturer) and then the leftovers were either abandoned and/or resold. That said, the shorter height would mean they have a lower ripple current rating. To obtain the correct ripple current rating, just see another cap from the Nichicon PT datasheet that has the same dimensions from the same voltage rating. In this case, I see the 400V 120 uF PT has dimensions of 18 x 35.5... which is probably what your cap is. So for ripple current, you get 670 mA instead of 770 mA.

Again, in short, I think these are real.

[Kabir85]

momaka, Thank you for the response. I had my suspicions about the authenticity as well and did some research on vendor specific capacitor models. It turns out that many large system builders like Dell, HP, etc., use custom capacitors in their power supplies. Interestingly, I had an old Dell LCD monitor with a custom Nippon Chemi-Con KXG 450V 150µF capacitor even though the official datasheet only goes up to 100µF. Another PSU from Delta had a Nichicon KMG 420V 120µF, which also doesn’t appear in the standard datasheet. So I guess these are indeed original, just custom-spec parts made for OEMs.

The seller I buy from on AliExpress has so far provided all genuine capacitors mostly NOS, typically 5 to 10 years old. Spec wise, they’re still fine, and ESR/capacitance measurements have consistently been within tolerance.

[theOracle]

Take it from someone who installs over 18,000 through hole capacitors each year, counterfeits should never be a problem, there is NEVER a reason to buy from unauthorized sources, as Digikey and Mouser are dirt cheap, and guaranteed to be genuine.

Apparently, my post from 11 years ago has not been read in a while, given the silly discussion here recently, so I am repasting it here:


08-31-2014, 04:21 PM

Re: Any more info on counterfeit Nichicons?


It's really simple, just buy from the authorized Nichicon distributors (which means pretty much DigiKey & Mouser) - you will NOT get fakes from the authorized distributors, but you have a very HIGH probability of getting counterfeits if you use any sources that are not specifically called out on the Nichicon website!

you need "chain of custody" between Nichicon and you to avoid the Chinese counterfeits that are now at epidemic proportions!



"Has anyone else suspected lately counterfeit Nichicons from a major recommended/reliable/trusted vendor?"


just stay with the vendors listed on Nichicon's corporate website, those ARE the only "major trusted/recommended/reliable vendors", there has never been any counterfeit Nichicons sold by Digikey or Mouser, so this is non-existent imaginary issue.


Last edited by theOracle; 08-31-2014, 04:25 PM.

[Kabir85]

theOracle , I wish I had direct access to DigiKey & Mouser unfortunately where I am located there are two options Aliexpress or LCSC. Bought from Digikey once 10x TI NE5532 shipped to Canada and waited 9 months for someone to deliver them to me. There are a few sellers on Aliexpress that sell genuine branded capacitors; the sellers I buy from always have NOS and never sell from the new batch had to reform a few.

[momaka]

The seller I buy from on AliExpress has so far provided all genuine capacitors mostly NOS, typically 5 to 10 years old. Spec wise, they’re still fine, and ESR/capacitance measurements have consistently been within tolerance.

Yes, I have found several sellers on ebay that are the same way - most of the caps they sell are NOS (5-10 years old, and a few even older). Have not had any issues with using those.

Take it from someone who installs over 18,000 through hole capacitors each year, counterfeits should never be a problem, there is NEVER a reason to buy from unauthorized sources, as Digikey and Mouser are dirt cheap, and guaranteed to be genuine.

I have nothing against buying from Mouser and Digikey. The only issue is, both of these tend to be NA-centric (US / Canada.) So if you live elsewhere in the world, options can indeed get more limited. And in that case, it's good to know that there genuine Japanese caps too floating around on platforms like ebay and Aliexpress. One just has to be more careful to avoid the counterfeits. But other than that, it's a working alternative.

Also, Digikey and Mouser are definitely not dirt-cheap - not for small orders anyways. In fact, for small orders, prices can be almost 2-3x compared to what I can get if I buy NOS instead. It might not matter for small caps that are 30-40 cents or under on Digikey. But once you move to the bigger ones, the difference becomes pretty obvious. And for the things I use my capacitors (mostly recapping old/"retro" PSUs and motherboards), NOS is simply fine. Just as long as it's a known quality Japanese brand and series, I don't think I'll be seeing any issues any time soon. Of course, time will tell, I suppose. I do try to update my threads when I run into issues like that (like I have with reusing Rubycon MFZ and Sanyo WF, for example.) But so far so good with the NOS caps from the various eBay sellers.

Now if we are talking about transistors (particularly high-power BJTs)... that's something else. For these, it's hard to find *any* that are genuine on ebay and Ali. Even "jellybean" parts like E13009 and E13007 NPN BJTs are mostly counterfeit and badly over-rated.