Re: If you had to choose a chinese/taiwanese/non japanese capacitor, what would it be
Now adays, I don't really have a favorite brand irrespective of their nationality, just certain brands I would use and other brands I would avoid. Those SMD electrolytics drying up is the norm. In my experience and the experience of others here, there is no such thing as a good SMD electrolytic. They dry up and/or outright leak much faster than their through-hole brethren no matter who makes them. Finding case sizes that aren't in the datasheets are simply custom orders. Similarly, there are case sizes in the datasheets that may have never been produced. A capacitor with no series designation can also be a custom series order only sold to OEMs.
To be frank, I think people are allowed to their opinions. You needn't be so easily riled up when you see people railing on your favorite brands. Furthermore, one is not racist just because they are deriding the quality of the Chinese/Taiwanese brands. Calling them horrible people would be racist, but all we're effectively doing is calling them out for their premature failures.
No one is automatically assuming Chinese brands (electrolytic or otherwise) are indefinitely bad and Japanese brands are magically good just by virtue of their nationality. It just so happens that the four companies that really allot the proper R&D, QA, and financial resources to making good electrolytics are Nichicon, Nippon Chemi-con, Rubycon, and Panasonic. I'm sure there are good Chinese brands (Man Yue / Samxon) and bad Japanese brands (Toshin Kogyo maybe). Samyoung (NCC's Korean subsidiary) and Samwha (Nichicon's Korean subsidiary) are hit or miss in my experience.
Yeah, liquid electrolytic capacitors, to this day, are still a necessary evil. They aren't super-long-life components to begin with, and certainly have their wear-out mechanisms, that is the evaporation of the electrolytic fluid either by diffusing through the rubber bung or even leaking electrolyte once the rubber finally deteriorates enough. Even the big four, most esteemed brands on this board (Rubycon, Nichicon, NCC, and Panasonic again) have all admitted that the maximum estimated service life of a wet electrolytic (or even a solid electrolytic) is 15 years (or 131,400 hours, whether in storage or during operation) due to the degradation of the rubber bung. Of course they can last longer than that, but if they are failing after 15 years, I wouldn't call them crap.
A capacitor is determined to have reached its end-of-life when capacitance, leakage current, and ESR go out of their tolerances or when visual abnormities can be observed (leaking electrolyte at the vent or seal, increased vapor and gas pressure rupturing the can and opening the pressure relief vent and/or blowing out the bung, etc).
One last note, finding a failed electrolytic (or a failed rectifier) here and there does not automatically make the brand bad. As Pete said a few years ago, one should make the distinction between capacitors that have failed before the useful life of the device has ended and capacitors that fail long after.
Now adays, I don't really have a favorite brand irrespective of their nationality, just certain brands I would use and other brands I would avoid. Those SMD electrolytics drying up is the norm. In my experience and the experience of others here, there is no such thing as a good SMD electrolytic. They dry up and/or outright leak much faster than their through-hole brethren no matter who makes them. Finding case sizes that aren't in the datasheets are simply custom orders. Similarly, there are case sizes in the datasheets that may have never been produced. A capacitor with no series designation can also be a custom series order only sold to OEMs.
Originally posted by Stefan Payne
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And why do YOU assume that the caps are bad when from a "chinese" brand and do the opposite when it's a japanese brand?
Racist?!
Racist?!
Seems to me that caps are overrated. Jon Gerow stated the same...
A capacitor is determined to have reached its end-of-life when capacitance, leakage current, and ESR go out of their tolerances or when visual abnormities can be observed (leaking electrolyte at the vent or seal, increased vapor and gas pressure rupturing the can and opening the pressure relief vent and/or blowing out the bung, etc).
One last note, finding a failed electrolytic (or a failed rectifier) here and there does not automatically make the brand bad. As Pete said a few years ago, one should make the distinction between capacitors that have failed before the useful life of the device has ended and capacitors that fail long after.
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