[Kenwood] Capacitor reliability

[John E. Cleeve]

Hello Steve,
	Thank you for your comment. I agree with regard to the source of
manufacture, I still have UK and USA source electrolytic capacitors in use
that were manufactured during WWII! 

	There is also an interesting Wikipedia entry regarding poorly
manufactured electrolytics, and industrial espionage, where the electrolyte
ingredients were copied but are not correct, and the resulting failures,
some explosive!

	 This now makes me very suspicious about the integrity and
reliability of the radio products on which we are being asked to spend our
money, when virtually everything electronic contains the majority of
components sourced in Asia.

	Sincerely, John. G3JVC.

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Steve [mailto:k0xp at k0xp.com] 
Sent: 29 May 2010 13:14
To: John E. Cleeve; kenwood at mailman.qth.net
Subject: Re: [Kenwood] Capacitor reliability

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 

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