[Kenwood] Capacitor reliability

[Steve]

At 06:33 AM 5/29/2010, John E. Cleeve wrote:
>In looking for replacements, I was surprised to find that the capacitor
>manufacturers stated "life span" in hours, for their products, which varies
>from "long life" to quoted figures of 1000 to 8000 hours, depending on the
>price and size of the component, it would appear that our radios may have an
>inbuilt "time bomb". One year is 8760 hours, and assuming that the radio
>equipment manufacturer goes for the cheapest component option to maximise
>profit, capacitors which only have a predicted life span of 1000 hours, can
>be expected to begin to fail just a few months after the equipment goes into
>regular use.

"Lifetime" applies to the hours during which the component is 
actually in use, not from it's "birth". But yes, electrolytic caps 
have relatively short lifetimes.

But it's telling, that much equipment whose components were built in 
Europe or North America years and years ago that has been in regular 
use, still have their original electrolytic caps that are still 
working, whereas equipment with capacitors made in asia often have 
failed within a fraction of that time.

Steve, K0XP