Inexpensive Electrolytic Capacitors

[talbany]

With reference to the Sprague Atom's I've found back in 07 they made the switch to ROHAS compliant.. It was around this time that I noticed the caps were not the same.. Poor quality control inconsistent values as mentioned..Since then I switched to the F&T's.. It could be Sprague instead of retooling could have outsourced that cap who knows.. I know they have not been the same since..To the discerning ear filter caps do and can effect tone.. After all they do set up the RC time constant of the entire amp indirectly effecting frequency response..Some hear it/feel it some don't..
IC's are work hoarse caps and worth the money you'll even find them in many Dumble amps.. To me they have a slightly stiffer feel to them than the F&T's That's just me!!

Ampdoc

Thanks for posting that WOW!!!
Tony VVT Amps

[UR12]

Just wonder how many ticking time bombs there are out there.

[ampdoc1]

TA. I'm also glad you are addressing this problem,..I can understand that you may have been taken advantage of also.

I guess in the end, if the price looks too good to be true, it probably is!

ampdoc

[talbany]

TA. I'm also glad you are addressing this problem,..I can understand that you may have been taken advantage of also.

I guess in the end, if the price looks too good to be true, it probably is!

ampdoc

Waaaayyyy Back when we first started I would take on kits to earn some extra bread..I built a dozen or so Webers.. I had to shy away from doing them because in many cases the volltages would exceed the cap values or were boarder line.. I remember always having to fire them up with the tubes in them as in some cases could hear the caps snapping under the stress.. I had no clue where they got them and who made rebranded etc.. It got to where I pretty much had to do an upgraded kit with better caps and pots and wire in fear of a liability issue coming back to bite me...Eventually no one would want the upgrade so I stopped building them.. I hate to talk bad about another amp maker/Kit and know Weber speakers are a totally different story.. On a good note the Transformers Chassis and in most cases cabinets were of good quality.. It's been a while since I've built one or have been inside one so maybe they took care of that.. Re-branding a cap w/higher voltage rating is shameful..Sorry to hear that sort of stuff goes on!!

Tony

[Dai H.]

FWIW one of the fake caps is a "Rubycon YK", axial. In mind, any "new made in Japan" or Japanese manf.'ed axial cap sets off alarm bells, since AFAIK Japanese manfs. discontinued axial package alu electros, so unless it's actually old stock or something, that should be one indication of a suspect item. (Just to make a quick check, I looked at the Rubycon site YK datasheet, and these are radial, with no axial package ones listed. Also, in their series listing datasheet, I didn't see any axial packaged ones.) The only axial alu electros that I'm aware of that might be considered from a Japanese manf. are "Unicon" brand, which (I think) is something like a Japanese manf. making caps in China(which may be perfectly good caps).

(Some pics I found on the web of "Unicon" caps) :
http://www.inter-d.com/unicon.htm

[Noel Grassy]

What sort of mind would go to these lengths in order to pull down
say $5~$10K USD? In order for this chiseler to be selling train cars
full of these "Gypsy" caps and making it worthwhile, wouldn't his
operation require a formidable workforce? Let alone the numbers of parts (2 for 1)??
Uck me, are times that farging tight across the globe?
We are probably several years from recovery with respect to the devastating unemployment in the US, right? This whole planet is
gonna be a seething shitstorm very quickly.
Judging from this apparent willingness to deceive at any cost.

Has anyone seen the similar punk assed fraud perpetrated with Germanium xistors being decorated with minuscule Letraset labels to read like
they are the coveted Mullard OC81D?
I mean what the flick sort of half-celled organism would vie for that isolated portion of the marketshare so they could really rake it in from selling a few here and there? That's just plain retarded,

isn't it?

There is a small poster at one of the parts joints I haunt that shows a "highjacked" 'Lytic cap with the hokey parasite inside and it always struck me as an act born of savage desperation nothing more.
I never presumed it might be repeated! Doh...

Noel Grassy.

[Structo]

I agree and yes I did see that counterfeit transistor.

Imagine taking that tiny little label and putting it on 100's of transistors....

With plenty of money to be made selling the real things it is amazing the lengths that some go to.

The fake chicken egg was the clincher for me.

How the fark hard is it to raise 50 chickens and sell the eggs?

David you have a PM.

[rock_mumbles]

It just occurred to me that I had some of the Elon caps, so I cut one up and here is what I found... notice a long and a short lead ... also it had two rubber end caps... and look what's inside a "rubicon 47uf 450V YK cap... I wonder what that really is...

[img:600:323]http://rh-tech.org/public/Elon_E-cap.png[/img]

[ampdoc1]

Cut the Rubicon open and you might find the "third" cap like I did!

Ridiculous!!!

[bancika]

here's what I found in mine. The third cap is obviously a pull from used equipment with new leads soldered to the old ones

[img:800:600]http://diy-fever.com/wordpress/wp-conte ... _cap_2.jpg[/img]

[Structo]

I don't know about anybody else but this is really starting to piss me off.
Electronics is such a major part of modern lives nowadays, to think we are depending on the makers of components to make legitimate products.

Your very life may depend on the defibrillator in a doctors hands, then boom!
Equipment failure.

[MBD115]

My DMM reads caps and usually I do check before installing one, but after seeing all this I think I'll be checking every cap from now on!!!

Thanks for posting this heads up. I had no idea this was going on.

[bancika]

My DMM reads caps and usually I do check before installing one, but after seeing all this I think I'll be checking every cap from now on!!!

Thanks for posting this heads up. I had no idea this was going on.

Just measuring them with DMM won't help in most cases because they usually put caps of similar capacitance inside. In my case those were 22uF which is within the range for a 20uF cap.

[bigbeck]

It just occurred to me that I had some of the Elon caps, so I cut one up and here is what I found... notice a long and a short lead ... also it had two rubber end caps... and look what's inside a "rubicon 47uf 450V YK cap... I wonder what that really is...

[img:600:323]http://rh-tech.org/public/Elon_E-cap.png[/img]

Well,this example is not so bad. At least the voltages are the same. Unless there's another surprise inside of that Rubycon.

[bancika]

Well,this example is not so bad. At least the voltages are the same. Unless there's another surprise inside of that Rubycon.

yes, but bear in mind that the inside cap is most likely used. Leads are so short which indicates it's probably desoldered from a PCB. I think that's the main motivation for these fakes, to recycle old crap. It's much better for them to get old appliances for free and hire someone to harvest components (almost for free) than to buy new caps, no matter how cheap they are.
Cheers