Old stock capacitors

[bauto601]

I recently bought a batch of capacitors at Conrad (that is, for me, a trusted source). But they have really old date codes, here is the list:

- Yageo (Teapo) SY 1500uF 16V: 09/16
- Yageo (Teapo) SY 1500uF 6.3V: 01/16
- Yageo (Teapo) SY 1000uF 6.3V: 12/15
- Yageo (Teapo) SC 2200uF 6.3V: 07/13 (7 years old )

They were quite cheap overall so i can't complain all that much, but 7 year old caps... Are they still worth using or should i ask for a refund?

[Topcat]

Re: Old stock capacitors

They're not called 'cheapo teapo' for nothing. Old stock of good brands don't scare me....but I wouldn't use a teapo for a repair if it were fresh off the assembly line....let alone one that sat on the shelf for 7 years.

FWIW, KZG and KZJ UCC's are the worst for dying on the shelves.

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: Old stock capacitors

They're not called 'cheapo teapo' for nothing. Old stock of good brands don't scare me....but I wouldn't use a teapo for a repair if it were fresh off the assembly line....let alone one that sat on the shelf for 7 years.

FWIW, KZG and KZJ UCC's are the worst for dying on the shelves.

Fuhjyyu in many mid-2000s' Antecs are possibly the worst for any upscale PSU!

[bauto601]

Re: Old stock capacitors

Oh, i understand from what i have readen here that Teapo isn't that bad when you get the 10mm caps instead of the 8mm ones and that the later production caps have a much lower failure rate than the Teapo's from let's say 2000-2006. Especially when you don't use the extremely low-esr models that are used on motherboards. They were about €0,25 each, so i thought i could give it a go for older psu's that aren't really worth that much.

[Wester547]

Re: Old stock capacitors

Personally, I've had a rather unfavorable experience with Teapo capacitors manufactured in 2009 and before, regardless of series and case size. Whether or not you want to use them is up to you, but I would not ever recommend using any Teapo for a long-term repair, irrespective of the fact that there are technically “worse” brands out there.

Yeah, KZG and KZJ made before 2008 are most notorious for dying on the shelf, although for some reason (at least in my experience) KZG seem to be worse about it.

[Topcat]

Re: Old stock capacitors

Fuhjyyu in many mid-2000s' Antecs are possibly the worst for any upscale PSU!

I wouldn't even address fuhjiyyu as a 'capacitor'....

[Uranium-235]

Re: Old stock capacitors

I wouldn't even address fuhjiyyu as a 'capacitor'....

or a pronounceable word after like 20 tries

[ChaosLegionnaire]

Re: Old stock capacitors

yea, i can only pronounce it as fuh-joo-yoo. so i guess never buy a capacitor whose name u cant pronounce; never go out with a girl u dont know. very good words of wisdom paraphrased... hahaha!

[momaka]

Re: Old stock capacitors

They were quite cheap overall so i can't complain all that much, but 7 year old caps... Are they still worth using or should i ask for a refund?

At 7 years old ... and Teapo SC, at that ...

Yeah, it may NOT be a good idea to use them in anything you care about.

You may try reforming them slowly to their rated voltage (or close) through a 1-10 KOhm resistor in series to limit current, as caps this old sitting around (especially cheapo ones) could be depolarized and fail short-circuit instantly.

But in any case, this won't restore any degradation in terms of specs. At 7 years on the shelf with no voltage, they may be close to or at the end of their life already (if not there.)

but I wouldn't use a teapo for a repair if it were fresh off the assembly line....let alone one that sat on the shelf for 7 years.

Can't say you're doing anything wrong there.

Teapo is indeed best to be avoided.

In my experience, however, I wouldn't say they are all terrible.
Like most cheapo brands, they are unpredictable. I have some Teapo caps that are close to two decades old and still read correct on specs. I also have seen Teapo caps in PSUs manufactured 5-6 years ago without seeing much stress, and already failed.

Teapo SC, in particular, is quite unpredictable, IMO. I still have a bunch of 1000 uF, 6.3V SC that I pulled from motherboards around 8 years ago now. Some have started to fail, others seem to be OK. The ones that seem to be OK, I use for testing and breadboard projects once in a while.

As for Teapo SY, I think they do hold up better, overall. Have seen a few Bestec PSUs where the Teapo SY caps were still fine, but the SEK (general purpose 105C series) failed.

And last but not least, Teapo SZ (or as I like to call them, the "sizzle" series, as they tend to vent rather quickly): these are supposedly Teapo's "motherboard grade" line of caps... and they are terrible. Avoid, even if free. Guaranteed to fail on the shelf or in use.

FWIW, KZG and KZJ UCC's are the worst for dying on the shelves.

Though, the KZG 16V, 1500 and 1800 uF caps in d10 size seem to be OK. Haven't seen many fail (actually only a few that were heat-abused.)
But KZG in 6.3V, 820 uF, along with 16V, 470 uF and 6.3V 1500 uF - FAIL!
And then there are the 6.3V, 3300 uF KZG... we all know how those fare

Fuhjyyu in many mid-2000s' Antecs are possibly the worst for any upscale PSU!

Meh. I find them about as good/bad as Teapo SC... maybe only slightly worse. I'd say CapXon is far worse.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
And then there is GSC/Evercon/Sacon, right here at the bottom. No one makes worse caps. (Except maybe Rulycon... but those are knockoff Rubycon look-alikes, so that shouldn't be a surprise now. )

[bauto601]

Re: Old stock capacitors

Thanks for all the information. I will probably just use the Yageo SY caps, the SC caps will stay here in case i need a quick fix when i don't have any other capacitors laying around.

Today i also received my DE-5000 LCR meter, an excellent piece of equipment to measure capacitor behaviour. The meter has been calibrated using the built-in calibration program and the measurements are taken at 22 degrees celcius room temperature.

So first, let's begin with the Yageo SY series, the 1500uF 6.3V 10*19.5 01/16 caps to be precise. All specifications are directly copied from the datasheet.

Yageo SY 1500uF 6.3V 10*19.5 01/16:
- Capacitance (120Hz, +-20%): 1500uF / 1364uF measured
- ESR (100KHz, Max value): 0.046Ω / 0.021Ω measured
- Dissipation factor (120Hz, Max value): 0.22 / 0.055 measured
- Result: PASS

Yageo SY 1000uF 6.3V 8*15 12/15:
- Capacitance (120Hz, +-20%): 1000uF / 906uF measured
- ESR (100KHz, Max value): 0.087Ω / 0.029Ω measured
- Dissipation factor (120Hz, Max value): 0.22 / 0.059 measured
- Result: PASS

Yageo SY 1500uF 16V 10*30 09/16:
- Capacitance (120Hz, +-20%): 1500uF / 1363uF measured
- ESR (100KHz, Max value): 0.031Ω / 0.014Ω measured
- Dissipation factor (120Hz, Max value): 0.16 / 0.037 measured
- Result: PASS

Now, lets do the old and and also still brand new Yageo SC cap, this should be interesting, isn't it?

Yageo SC 2200uF 6.3V 10*25 07/13:
- Capacitance (120Hz, +-20%): 2200uF / 2070uF measured
- ESR (100KHz, Max value): 0.048Ω / 0.017Ω measured
- Dissipation factor (120Hz, Max value): 0.22 / 0.069 measured
- Result: BIG FAT PASS

Not even a tight squeeze. All the caps perform ESR wise much better than the datasheet states as a max value. The capacitance was always about 8~10% lower than stated, but within the specifications.

Now i also have a ChengX cap out of an unused old stock PSU (2012 assembly year):

ChengX GR 1000uF 16V 10*20 ~2012:
- Capacitance (120Hz, +-20%): 1000uF or 1200uF / 1012uF measured
- ESR (100KHz, Max value): 0.060 or 0.046 / 0.023Ω measured
- Dissipation factor (120Hz, Max value): 0.16 / 0.051 measured
- Result: PASS (a tight squeeze if it was meant to be a 1200uF cap)

The weird thing is, is that the capacitor size does not correspond with the datasheet. It either needs to be 4mm lower, or have 200uF more at it's current size. Could be a resleeved factory reject if it was meant to be a 1200uF cap. But it does perform just fine.

I wanted to share these measurements because i haven't really seen any measurements done on old stock capacitors and you guys might find these interesting.

[Wester547]

Re: Old stock capacitors

And last but not least, Teapo SZ (or as I like to call them, the "sizzle" series, as they tend to vent rather quickly): these are supposedly Teapo's "motherboard grade" line of caps... and they are terrible. Avoid, even if free. Guaranteed to fail on the shelf or in use.

Teapo SM is crap, too. No longer in production IIRC, but I've seen too many motherboards with every one popped or bad. I've seen them fail just sitting as well. Other than that, they (Teapo) are inconsistent - just like any other dubious brand.