Why do people use TEAPO / YAGEO / G-LUXON?

[theokretes]

Re: Why do people use TEAPO / YAGEO / G-LUXON?

I myself don't trust Teapo anymore, because they seem to fail very inconsistently, unlike OST and Taicon (and a few other brands) which usually fail due to excess heat. In particular, I find that small-diameter Teapo caps (8mm and smaller) fail very often - even with very little use. Most likely very unstable electrolyte or perhaps they are manufactured in a different factory. Their 10mm and higher caps are nowhere near as bad.

Oh, I'll take Fuhjyyu any day over Sacon, Evercon, and GSC. The latter are guaranteed to fail. Fuhjyyu is actually not all too bad, but they are inconsistent like Teapo. In any case, at least I've seen more than a few high voltage Fuhjyyu primary caps in PSUs, and they rarely had or gave problems even after a very long time. Also have many PSUs with Fuhjyyu caps that are 10+ years old and still up to specs. As long as the heat is kept down, Fuhjyyu *might* just do okay. With Teapo, it's that plus draw of luck. And with Sacon, GSC, and Evercon, it's... well nothing - they just fail no matter how you treat them.

Fuhjyyu in my opinion are possibly *the worst* capacitors. I don't think it's a matter of inconsistencies, but pure chance if they'll actually 'work' as a capacitor.

OST always fail in situations where regular capacitors are still operating fine. Unacceptable.

So from what I gather, TEAPO is simply just left in things that aren't important. I'm not sure if I would go through the effort to purchase some though... especially since they seem to be more expensive that quality capacitors at lower values-- most likely due to price spiking from resellers.

Also TEAPOs always use bungs with a circular pattern:


You can often find fake rubycons / nichicons with those bungs. As such I'm not convinced there are 'counterfeit' TEAPOs if they are themselves used to make counterfeits...

[c_hegge]

Re: Why do people use TEAPO / YAGEO / G-LUXON?

^
Yup. Those Dell roasting ovens will kill any electrolytic cap. I've only ever recapped one GX270 (since they are so old now that I can't even give them away), but I polymodded it specifically for that reason.

As for teapo, I used to class them right down, almost with Sacon, but I've softened a little towards them over the last year or so. I don't see them fail quite as often as I used to, although I still replace them no questions asked on all of my gear and won't buy anything that uses them if I can help it.

[momaka]

Re: Why do people use TEAPO / YAGEO / G-LUXON?

Anyways, I'd like to hear any other stories with TEAPO (bad / good), or why people seriously want to use these things-- or any derivatives in the "TEAPO family".

It's not that I "want to use them", but often times, they are just there already and if it's some cheap piece of equipment, or the Teapo caps are in a spot unlikely to fail, then I won't replace them.

Case in point:
Two years ago, my friend was working in some cheapskate towing company and they had their main PC go down. My friend told them that I do a lot of computer repairs and could have a look at it before they spend any money at a repair shop. My internship at the time was very close to his towing company's office, so I came the same night and immediately saw the cheap PSU in the computer - a low-end LinkWorld PSU. It was faulty (bad solder joint on 3.3V rail coil, though I found this too late to fix it for them). They asked, "how much to repair it? If it's more than $30, we'd rather buy a new computer." Knowing that they were cheapskates, I knew that they would probably throw the computer away (which would be a shame, since the motherboard was decent and had a dual or quad core CPU) and buy another junk build. I should have asked what their intentions were if it did cost more than $30... but I didn't. So instead, I decided that I will fix it. Micro Center was also nearby and I was with my bike, so I said, "probably $10-15 for a new refurbed PSU, but I can't give you any warranty except for whatever the refurbed PSU carries". They said "sounds good".

I went to MC, grabbed one of those refurbed built-like-a-tank 250W HiPro PSUs for $5, popped it open, checked it - no bad caps, though they were all Teapo - and then I put it back together and installed it in the computer. One year later, and that PC was still working.

This is not an example of how good Teapo is, but rather, that there are times where it just isn't worth bothering to replace them.

I myself don't trust Teapo anymore, because they seem to fail very inconsistently, unlike OST and Taicon (and a few other brands) which usually fail due to excess heat. In particular, I find that small-diameter Teapo caps (8mm and smaller) fail very often - even with very little use. Most likely very unstable electrolyte or perhaps they are manufactured in a different factory. Their 10mm and higher caps are nowhere near as bad.

That's like arguing evercon vs. fuhjyyu.

Oh, I'll take Fuhjyyu any day over Sacon, Evercon, and GSC. The latter are guaranteed to fail. Fuhjyyu is actually not all too bad, but they are inconsistent like Teapo. In any case, at least I've seen more than a few high voltage Fuhjyyu primary caps in PSUs, and they rarely had or gave problems even after a very long time. Also have many PSUs with Fuhjyyu caps that are 10+ years old and still up to specs. As long as the heat is kept down, Fuhjyyu *might* just do okay. With Teapo, it's that plus draw of luck. And with Sacon, GSC, and Evercon, it's... well nothing - they just fail no matter how you treat them.

yeah i forgot to mention I did see them fail, near the agp slot on the 270s...

That's a special case of retarded Foxconn/Intel design. There is a MOSFET near that cap that reaches case temperatures in excess of 75C and so does that cap, since it's next to it.
So yeah, no wonder anything fails there.

[BigTroll]

Re: Why do people use TEAPO / YAGEO / G-LUXON?

yeah i forgot to mention I did see them fail, near the agp slot on the 270s i saw two that actually the cap started to lift off the bung, but other then that out of the 100s of 270s I saw I never once saw them bloat on the VRM caps behind the processor, where nichicon and rubycon would. no cap is perfect but for me they seem to be the closest.

[goodpsusearch]

Re: Why do people use TEAPO / YAGEO / G-LUXON?

I have seen failed Panasonic capacitors. They were primary caps on active pfc Tagan psu and Panasonic FJ on fanless low level graphics card.

[BigTroll]

Re: Why do people use TEAPO / YAGEO / G-LUXON?

So if you did have something that was mission critical, would you still use TEAPO?
Also out of curiosity, how much did the TEAPO cap cost-- I'm buying some beefy GXes (to recap some vintage Marcons) that are going to cost me $40 in total.

if it was mission critical no, I bought a lot of 10 2200uf 16v teapo SC it was 7.50 alltogether with free ship from taiwan off ebay mockingbird said the seller was okay and they were legit teapos. otherwise panasonic is my personal favorite, just never see them fail however i do see failed UCC nichicon and rubycons from time to time but only in the space heater dells.

[theokretes]

Re: Why do people use TEAPO / YAGEO / G-LUXON?

I think alot of the problem is manufacturing, teapo used to make their capacitors in taiwan but around 2002 or so started making them in china and the quality has dropped somewhat, I have old devices from the 80s with teapos that work just fine, its just a luck of the draw or lottery,but compaired to GSC sacon or other guaranteed to fail chinese brands the teapos really arent that bad. the other day i replaced one bloated teapo in a psu the cap was in a hot spot touching the coil of the psu so it failed, I did not want to recap the whole psu so i got a identical teapo put it in its place and moved it away from the hot coil, psu works great and voltages are in spec and its in a non critical application so if it failed i wouldn't really care.

So if you did have something that was mission critical, would you still use TEAPO?
Also out of curiosity, how much did the TEAPO cap cost-- I'm buying some beefy GXes (to recap some vintage Marcons) that are going to cost me $40 in total.

[BigTroll]

Re: Why do people use TEAPO / YAGEO / G-LUXON?

I think alot of the problem is manufacturing, teapo used to make their capacitors in taiwan but around 2002 or so started making them in china and the quality has dropped somewhat, I have old devices from the 80s with teapos that work just fine, its just a luck of the draw or lottery,but compaired to GSC sacon or other guaranteed to fail chinese brands the teapos really arent that bad. the other day i replaced one bloated teapo in a psu the cap was in a hot spot touching the coil of the psu so it failed, I did not want to recap the whole psu so i got a identical teapo put it in its place and moved it away from the hot coil, psu works great and voltages are in spec and its in a non critical application so if it failed i wouldn't really care.

[theokretes]

I've seen some posts where people are fine with having TEAPOs in their PSUs and other applications. Not to mention there was some warmth towards YAGEO (which is ran by TEAPO), and I would presume G-LUXON as a result, as TEAPO makes those as well. I've seen some folks seriously debate if TEAPO or Capxon was better... heh. That's like arguing evercon vs. fuhjyyu.

They are *terrible* electrolytics... they let excessive noise through (measurable either by watching your PSUs voltages or in audio applications where hum and hiss will penetrate), don't last very long, and never perform to their specified ratings.

I have an awesome IBM 800 watt PSU stuffed with proper rubycons, and it hits 11.98v on the 12V rail, and all of the other voltages are *spot* on. I checked TEAPO adorned PSUs and... yeah... the 12v rail was almost hitting 13v.

I had an old analog synth stuffed with some TEAPOs on a controller board that was added in (for MIDI purposes)-- the 3rd party add-on was done in recent times. Well after using the synth for a few months it started to lose its mind and the controller was changing all of the settings at random (and some settings that weren't even on the physical control panel...).
Popped it open, and what do you know. TEAPOs littered the add-on controller board. Replaced them with Chemicon KYs and Rubycon RX30s-- problem gone.
--> of course I've seen countless devices with failed exploded TEAPOs, but the above story was more interesting as those were "fresh" TEAPOs that were cosmetically fine doing weird things.

To me TEAPO is almost the epitome of what a 'bad capacitor' entails.

Anyways, I'd like to hear any other stories with TEAPO (bad / good), or why people seriously want to use these things-- or any derivatives in the "TEAPO family".