[First post] Fake x2 capacitors?

[RukyCon]

Hello, i'm new to the forum

Just wanna know if some people sell fake x2 safety capacitors on eBay.

[james_s]

I don't know, but given the number of fake/counterfeit components there are on ebay, I personally would not take that risk. If you need a safety component like that, buy them from a reputable vendor. Digikey, Mouser, Newark, etc, then you will know you are getting the real deal and can rest knowing that it probably is not going to burn your house down.

[RukyCon]

That dose make sense because i did find this cap...

[TJ232]

In this list of words are some of them that never should be put together in a sentence:
"x2" "safety" "capacitors" "fake" "eBay" "Aliexpress" "Alibaba" "Farnell" "Digikey" "Mouser" "Avnet"

[RukyCon]

Here's a cheap 0.47uf one i have.
Do you see anything wrong? 

[wraper]

That dose make sense because i did find this cap...

On that photo is just a usual film capacitor, not safety rated

[TJ232]

Look below what I have on my table right now. Do you want to know about how many we changed in the last month just in some termostat units?
PS: it's yellow, very yellow, like yours, just have a crap camera and light.

[Audioguru]

Isn't everything sold on ebay fakes or rejects? That is how they have very cheeeep prices and frequently the shipping from China is free.
I support my local REAL parts distributors who sell genuine items at reasonable prices.

[james_s]

A lot of the stuff is, not everything though. Even the real stuff is pretty much all made in China now, since all the manufacturing is in China, all the surplus is in China. It's the same way it was here back in the day with surplus stores carrying all sorts of leftover stuff from manufacturing runs, only it's also mixed in with fake/counterfeit junk. Some of it is just fine though, like Maxim LED matrix drivers, they cost a small fraction of what buying them from a US distributor charges. I dunno whether they're fakes, 3rd shift, copies, surplus or what but someone did some analysis of every variation they could get their hands on and they all worked perfectly. The $2.50 Arduino clones work perfectly, so do the 99c buck regulator boards. I'm not going to use stuff like that in a production item but for hacking together hobby projects they work fine.

[Tomorokoshi]

Here's a cheap 0.47uf one i have.
Do you see anything wrong? 

Fake. UR mark is not correct.

http://www.ul.com/marks/ul-listing-and-classification-marks/appearance-and-significance/marks-for-north-america/

[wraper]

Here's a cheap 0.47uf one i have.
Do you see anything wrong? 

Fake. UR mark is not correct.

http://www.ul.com/marks/ul-listing-and-classification-marks/appearance-and-significance/marks-for-north-america/

I don't see anything wrong with it.
EDIT: I found one panasonic cap desoldered from somewhere, and that have the ugliest UL mark I ever seen.

[james_s]

The question is did that part come from that company or is it a knockoff? There are lots of knockoffs of other questionable quality Chinese brands. Not long ago I came into possession of a knockoff "Uitra Flrc" 18650 cell that looks very much like UltraFire, itself a rather dubious brand.

[CatalinaWOW]

Buying from a reputable distributor may give you a better chance of getting a part that is not counterfeit, but it isn't a guarantee.  There are unethical people all over the world, and where there is a dollar to be made, occasionally something bad slips through.  Unless someone you have good reason to personally trust has audited each and every step from manufacture to delivery to your door you don't really know what you are getting. 

Industries that really care about this sort of thing (aerospace, medical and the like) spend a lot of time and money trying to assure that their parts are good - and have failures in this process from time to time.  Fortunately the ones most interested in this find the problems before the parts are delivered to customers.  They do it by taking samples from each purchase and testing them to manufacturers specs, de-packaging and examining the contents and other measures.  Then people often complain about the high price of their products.

[james_s]

Few things in life are guaranteed, but buying from a reputable distributor certainly greatly increases your chance of getting a genuine part.

[RukyCon]

That dose make sense because i did find this cap...

On that photo is just a usual film capacitor, not safety rated

But, someone can relabel the capacitor and make it look like a x2 cap.

[RukyCon]

Here's a cheap 0.47uf one i have.
Do you see anything wrong? 

Fake. UR mark is not correct.

http://www.ul.com/marks/ul-listing-and-classification-marks/appearance-and-significance/marks-for-north-america/

I was trying to point out that weird hole/bubble below the right leg.

[RukyCon]

Here's a newer x2 capacitor i have.
I have a feeling that the UR marking is fake.

[RukyCon]

Does the color of the capacitor matter at all?
I know that with electrolytic capacitors color does not matter.

[RukyCon]

Does the color of the capacitor matter at all?

No. I've seen black, gray, blue, transparent and mainly yellow X caps.
However, there are very few yellow non-X caps, that's my point.

Thanks, just wanted to know.
Oh, and i've seen green x2 caps

[james_s]

I was trying to point out that weird hole/bubble below the right leg.

That's an air bubble on the surface of the epoxy potting. Not exactly a sign of extremely high quality but not necessarily a problem either.

[Gyro]

How many posts does it take to tell a newbie -  Don't buy safety critical parts on ebay, buy them from a reputable distributor. Simple as that! 

[Fungus]

Isn't everything sold on ebay fakes or rejects? That is how they have very cheeeep prices and frequently the shipping from China is free.
I support my local REAL parts distributors who sell genuine items at reasonable prices.

Not everything, no.

But ... it's almost impossible to tell from the adverts and/or prices of stuff. Mostly the sellers don't even know what they're selling. I've bought the same stuff twice from the same seller via the same advert. One batch was perfect, one batch was junk. Go figure.

(I think some sellers advertise stuff then go downtown to get some if anybody buys. You'll get is whatever is in the market that day).

The real trick with eBay is to underpower and overrate everything. If you need a 10W power supply, order a 20W supply and you'll probably be fine. Need a 10W LED? Buy a 20W LED and underpower it. etc.

Or... buy from Russia/Israel. Those guys usually have quality stuff, but you'll pay for shipping.

[RukyCon]

There seems to be a few mixed opinion's about the x2 caps, i have some people telling me that i should not use ones from eBay, but then i have some people telling me that there most likely ok to use.

And i'm not the type of person that buys all of there parts from eBay. example: i was repairing an old power supply [some of the output caps had failed] and i got all of the parts to do it off of mouser.

[Siwastaja]

i have some people telling me that i should not use ones from eBay, but then i have some people telling me that there most likely ok to use.

No really, this is almost a tradition on the EEVblog forum now, so I guess many people don't even feel like commenting anymore.

Anyone who really has used Ebay to source their components, and really used them, knows really well that the fake ratio is just horribly massive. It's a total joke. Granted, in some product segments, you mostly get good stuff, but in some others, such as alu elcaps, discrete semiconductors like power FETs, LEDs, etc.,  you get basically over 90% fakes (or otherwise unusable or severely out-of-spec stuff).

On average, is it 5%, 20%, 50% or 70% crap, I don't know, but it doesn't matter; the ratio is too big anyway, so that anyone who has tried it too many times, has stopped buying the Ebay parts; except when they know what they are doing, or simply have to take the risk.

Back to the EEVblog forum tradition; threads like this show up all the time, and it's always people telling you not to buy the Ebay parts - which is a great general advice for any beginner - and then we see blueskull defending the market. I understand very well that he's irritated due to the more or less hidden rasistic undertones people too often show.

I like doing business with the Chinese, and I don't like the "everything Chinese is a scam or super shitty quality" mentality, which is plainly wrong.

But this is something we should and can evaluate based on facts, not feelings. The ratio of bad stuff sold by Chinese Ebay sellers is just huge. This is a fact that everybody can confirm on their own. I have bought a lot of stuff and know very well my defect percentage is somewhere around 30-50%. Today, it's a lot less, since I only buy Ebay stuff I think I can trust on, such as pin headers. But buying the Ebay components cannot be recommended for a beginner, nor when it comes to a safety-critical component. X2 capacitors wouldn't be on my Ebay list!

[RukyCon]

What if i only plan on using them on custom projects? [Like small LED lights]