Who makes RELIABLE modern electrolytic caps?

All of the new "small modern" caps will out live you.

The main cause of failure for modern caps is that they're run at high ripple current, something that does not happen in valve equipment.

If you want best reliability, get 120C rated caps rather than 85 and look at their mfr rated lifetime expectancy.

If you plan to send it to the moon, for extreme reliability for small values on HT, put plastic film caps inside the old cases, choosing higher v ratings & putting 2 in series. Then vacuum pot them. This is of course not necessary :)

NT

In fact, they are reliable, but due to cost reduction, some plants use processses which do not respect the dedicated soldering process and either the component breaks or it's value changes. Specially decoupling caps. generally the problem is located at the terminations.

Mouser.com DigiKey.com

And any of a dozen other suppliers will be glad to take your money and send you pretty much _exactly_ what you need.

Need multi-section caps? There is AES, Parts Express and half-a-dozen others. There is a company in Germany making Cornell-type cans on OEM equipment, but using modern materials.

And CE Does it right here in the US:

Remember, it is ONLY money.

Peter Wieck Melrose Park, PA

I would not sasy ALL. Remember the computer boards that had capacitors on them that only lasted about a year ? A friend and I had to send back several boards to one of the big computer board and part suppliers , but that was about 20 yars ago.

You may say the quality capacitors will outlive most of us.

Even the big name companies have problems. I have some test get that I bought surplus when the cell phones went from the 800 Meg to higher frequencies. The $ 50,000 piece of gear had capacitors go bad in the switching supplies. That was made around 1995 so they only lasted about

I don't know how long they will last, but I just bought a lot of capacitors from China off ebay. About a dozen of them are in use in my equipment and have worked for the last 3 months. They may or may not go out today. I would not put them in equipment that I was repairing for anyone for money, but this isfor my hobby work.

That wasn't because of modern capacitors. That was because the bean counters at Dell went with cheap counterfeit caps that were shit.

Panasonic and Nichicon.

Yeah, I totally agree with you. The new smaller modern caps just can't last. A perfect example. My Pioneer SX-434 is only 46 years old and the shitty small caps in it must be getting ready to fail. Even though I listen to it every day and though there is no degradation in the tuning or the sound I just know the caps must be getting ready to fail. They are just so small. Eric

The origional post was about which brands were the best.

That is why I said not all modern capacitors would last. I am sure there are lots of crap China brands of capacitors. I probably bought some a few months back, but they go in my hobby electronics.

The boards I sent back were not Dell. They were some boards from a company that sold computer boards and parts that I put together a computer. The boards were high rated before the capacitor problem. I think lots of companies had the cpacitor problem from that particular capacitor company.

One of the main things is that the switching supplies or high temperature are the main killers of the capacitors.

Any of the good brand capacitors should last longer than most of us will be around.

KenW

I don't think you're understanding why they died.

NT

When I build (or rebuild) something for myself, I always go with Panasonic capacitors.

I think I have a fair understanding of why capacitors die.

The could be made out of crap materials like the ones on the computer boards.

The switching power supplies really stress capacitors and they need to have a low ESR.

Heat will be bad for them. Some are rated around 85 and some are rated over 100 deg C.

The voltage ratings should be in the correct range. If they sit around a long time some will need to be reformed to meet the voltage requirement. Some of the capcitors are formed at a higher voltage than they are rated for to insure that as they age on the shelf they will still meet the rated specifications when used year or more later.

When you finally have a failure, I would replace all Sanyo brand capacitors.

Yes, the original question was which caps are BEST, but much of my concern is based on the failed motherboards, which only lasted a year or so.

Knowing the name used on these really bad junk caps would be useful to know too. I'm pretty fussy when I buy caps and some other components, but I do sometimes buy "grab bags" (like on Craigslist) if the price is right, and I know some parts will be usable. But knowing the name used on those conterfeit caps, or any others known to fail is good to know. If the caps are known bad, I am not going to use them for anything other than a breadboard test design, (or not at all).

I'm curious what brand of motherboards were the bad ones too....

It's just good to know things like this. Just like every brand of car seems to have certain common failure or breakdown problems, and knowing what to check and watch for, is helpful.

Electrolytics from Panasonic

Mike

Which, as usual, you didn't make at the beginning.

The Failed motherboards were, Dell. Their "Lets buy cheap shit" almost put them out of business. And that was almost 20 years ago.

The brands of capacitor involved were previously unknown and unable to be linked to any of the well known makers.

AFAIK the issue never involved electros that might be used in restoration of vintage tube gear.

"tubeguy" is a f****it - see " top definition " :

.... Phil

A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing.

People hear the stories, but don't grasp the details. Modern use of electrolytics is different from the tube days. Not only have values gone up as size got smaller, but they are often expected to handle much higher frequencies than 60 or 120Hz in the days of tubes. Electrolytics are also a lot more common in the days of solid state. In tube days, a bad one would mean low voltage, or hum, or low audio gain, but there were a handful of electrolytics. Now they are everywhere, a shift to low impedance so larger values needed, and that means electrolytics. The circuitry is now more complicated and a bad capacitor may not be so obvious as in the old days.

Michael