What time period were the "bad capacitor" batches used ..? (refering to those made with the stolen electrolyte formula)
Seems there are references from mainly 1999 and onwards. However, date for when these were no longer used for manufacturing would be useful. The year these were first used in production seems also a bit unclear.
What time period were the "bad capacitor" batches used ..?
** No proof exists they are not still being made and sold.** As would a cure for all cancers. ** If you were not a total ASS
- you would realise your Q is totally asinine.
........ Phil
Starting with a very few systems in 1999, becoming more and more common, peaking in 2003 and 2004, tapering off since then, but there are still bad caps showing up to this day (2007). I first saw this problem in the October 2002 issue of _Passive Component News_ [
That date has not yet arrived. They are becoming increasingly uncommon, but some are still finding their way into production, especially in cost-sensitive products (toys, for example) made by the lowest bidder in China.
1999, from all reports I have seen. It is difficult to get accurate information as manufacturers try to sweep the problem under the rug, but I don't think any system built in 1998 or earlier is affected. Not that there weren't other kinds of bad caps shipped before then...Also there are reports of two unrelated defects appearing about the same time; the first is the well-known problem of the stolen electrolyte formula that was missing an anti-corrosion ingredient causing excessively corrosive electrolyte that attacks the aluminum body. The second is capacitors that were overfilled with electrolyte leaving no room for thermal expansion. Supposedly the later could be identified by running the caps at maximum ripple current and maximum voltage at maximum environmental temperature, causing failure within a minute or two. The former is reported to be pretty much impossible to find without running the cap for months.
Two good places for information of this issue are Wikipedia [
-- Guy Macon
Thanks for the information. Too bad a test setup for these capacitor defects isn't feasable. (except the last one)
It could be tested for, just not quickly. One could make up a fixture that applies rated voltage and rated ripple current into a bunch of capacitors (with fuses or current limiting resistors, of course; even with a current limited supply, if one shorts all the others will try to dump dump all their stored energy into the bad cap, blowing it apart) and let them sit that way for enough time to weed out the bad ones. Perhaps the reduced capacitance and increased ESR happens quicker than the actual failures.
-- Guy Macon
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