My pet peev........dried out eletrolytics

[IanJ]

Hi all,

My pet peev is faulty boards due to use of cheap electrolytics that dry out too quickly (the domed tops are a dead giveaway).

Two recent repairs I've had to do in and around the home.......my own web/email server PC and the wife's washing machine.......both just a few years old.

Call me a conspiracy theorist if you like, but in the case of the washing machine for sure I reckon they spec these parts so the WILL fail pretty quickly and thus require maintenance, worst case a new board.

Funny how both failures seem to use the same brand of cap.

Ian.

The washing machine control board:-


Motherboard from my web/email server PC:-

[sonicj]

if the Maytag man came by, he likely would have quoted you a entire board for half the price of a new washer.

i got a nice "new" printer last week... my neighbor was tossing out a HP C5180 because it was "broke". she happened to see me outside and asked if i wanted it. sure! a 40¢ electrolytic later i was enjoying my new hp network printer. 

teapo is brand i see crap out a LOT.

i wonder how much electronic goods get binned due to a single bad cap or a crappy solder joint??
-sj

[WBB]

The really sad part is that they put all that crap in a washing machine! It washes clothes for crying out loud! Just put a big mechanical knob on it that'll last for 20 years. I don't need a washing machine with a control panel that looks like it came from a spaceship and is just waiting to kill over. Next (if not already) they'll stick a USB port on them for firmware updates. But that is an entirely different rant.

[BravoV]

No surprise there, its crapxon CapXon brand isn't it ?

A very well known brand for for bulging and leaking, especially when placed at warm area.

[Ajahn Lambda]

teapo is brand i see crap out a LOT.

QFT.  I have a 'dead' EPoX motherboard with about eight Teapo capacitors on it, and about three Panasonics.  The Teapos have ALL failed, with bulging tops and/or leaking electrolyte.  Maybe that was why the system would randomly restart...?      I have a few other defunct devices with those time-bombs inside.

i wonder how much electronic goods get binned due to a single bad cap or a crappy solder joint??

My dumpster diving, flea market, garage sale, Goodwill, and Salvation Army hunts for electronic goods seem to indicate quite a few things are tossed for very minor reasons.  I often find things with broken knobs and buttons, damaged cords, etc., but otherwise they work fine; if it's an item that merely doesn't turn on, I can usually get it for free or at a reduced price.  It's too bad people seem to 'need' new things instead of finding a repairman, or better yet learn how to repair it themselves.  First-world problems, eh?

In old audio amplifiers, tube and solid-state, I almost always find bad filter capacitors.  I hate when I find un-vented caps though, since there's no visually-obvious sign they're bad.  A quick check with the ESR meter tells me right away, though.  On the bright side, even good electrolytic capacitors are cheap cheap cheap!


IanJ: How old are those boards?  If they're from the early 2000s, that's probably a clue as to why they failed:

The capacitor plague (also known as bad capacitors or "bad caps")[1][2] is a problem with a large number of premature failures of aluminum electrolytic capacitors with non-solid or liquid electrolyte of certain brands, especially from some Taiwanese manufacturers.[3] The first flawed capacitors were seen in 1999, but most of the affected capacitors failed in the early to mid 2000s. High failure rates occurred in various electronics equipment, particularly motherboards, video cards, compact fluorescent lamp ballasts, LCD monitors, and power supplies of personal computers. News of the failures (usually after a few years of use) forced many equipment manufacturers to repair the defects. The problem seems to be ongoing; faults were still being reported as of 2010.[4]

Source:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague

[im_a_human]

Look in many (*cough*) apple products of the past, imac's, emac's, etc, and you will see almost entire boards with bulging cap's. stupid apple never learn to make there products run cool!!!

[cybergibbons]

Add to the list Netgear routers. They run their caps near (or actually above!) to rated voltage and temperature. Bulging caps abound. Currently trying to get router refunded or replaced because of this.

[IanJ]

IanJ: How old are those boards?  If they're from the early 2000s, that's probably a clue as to why they failed:

The washing machine is 5 years old.
The PC mb is probably about the same.

PS. I googled both model numbers (washing machine & PC) and it's RIFE.......heck, even the guy that sits across from me at work has the SAME washing machine and had the SAME problem a couple years ago.

Like I said, it's my pet peev....grrr!

Ian.

[davec]

I've had a bunch of Samsung LCD TV's all with the same problem, and it seems to be made worse by the fact the caps are right next to a heat source. I've seen a few different age sets with the same problem, and on the newer ones they seem to have changed brands and even gone for a larger value capacitors, but still haven't moved them a bit further from the heatsinks.




I had a rant about it a while ago:

http://tynemouthsoftware.blogspot.com/2012/02/samsung-lcd-tvs-power-supply-fault.html

It's almost as if they expect them to go in a couple of years (after the warranty has expired), so the TV fails and the user has to buy a new TV.

But it's not just them, the world is full of switch mode power supplies with filter capacitors that are all drying up as we speak. I've replaced countless ones over the years. OK, I could probably have counted them, but I didn't, suffice to say it's lots.

Insert further rant about throw away society and things not being made to last anymore and everything else that is wrong with the world.....

[The_Penguin]

This is no surprise to me.
In the last year and a half I have repaired 29 LCD monitors, 2 TVs, one multifunction printer, an iMac, and a high-end IP conference phone, and a few PC motherboards, just as a hobby, not my job.
 All of them had failed caps, some had other isses on top of the bad caps (failed FETs etc. probably caused by the bad caps)

[wkb]

The really sad part is that they put all that crap in a washing machine! It washes clothes for crying out loud! Just put a big mechanical knob on it that'll last for 20 years. I don't need a washing machine with a control panel that looks like it came from a spaceship and is just waiting to kill over. Next (if not already) they'll stick a USB port on them for firmware updates. But that is an entirely different rant.

Yes...  I remember my mother's Philips washing machine with a bank of mechanical push buttons failing.  The switches no longer wanted to 'lock' when pushed in.  Some investigation showed the locking mechanism had spit out a broken small pin.  I replaced that with a piece cut from a paperclip    The machine never broke again.  It was already 15+ years old before the first failure, it ran at least 5 years longer with the paperclip.  Replacement was eventually because it started to rust too badly.  All later machines (yes, with electronics) failed in 5 years or less.  Her comment: that Philips was the best I ever had 

[FenderBender]

"Bad caps" as they are called aren't anything new, and even the big manufacturers use them...which is actually something quite confusing.

Giants like HP, Logitech or any major tech brand makes their product in such huge quantities that the difference in price between using high quality caps and crap caps is so marginal that I just can't see why they would use the crap caps. When you're buying 500,000caps at a time with huge bulk discounts why in the heck would you settle for bad quality parts? Same thing applies for all types of components.

Years back, quality parts were harder to source, but now I do not think there is any justification for using low quality parts.

So could it be true that manufacturers purposely use crap caps as a ticking time bomb waiting to explode?

[T4P]

"Bad caps" as they are called aren't anything new, and even the big manufacturers use them...which is actually something quite confusing.

Giants like HP, Logitech or any major tech brand makes their product in such huge quantities that the difference in price between using high quality caps and crap caps is so marginal that I just can't see why they would use the crap caps. When you're buying 500,000caps at a time with huge bulk discounts why in the heck would you settle for bad quality parts? Same thing applies for all types of components.

Years back, quality parts were harder to source, but now I do not think there is any justification for using low quality parts.

So could it be true that manufacturers purposely use crap caps as a ticking time bomb waiting to explode?

They want the consumers to buy MORE after it's out of it's warranty , greedy companies nowdays !
In the past , it was harder to source and yet every single manufacturer used quality caps ( i'm talking about 00's era )

[FenderBender]

I wouldn't say every company used good quality caps...I've seen my fair share of equipment from the 90s-00s with bad caps.

True, I think good caps were easier to come by.

Definitely corporate greed. Nothing new. It's been around since the age of the railroad. But they keep on creeping into areas they should stay out of.

[SeanB]

I had an AEG Lavamat Electronic for years, the most reliable machine ever. Was 20 odd years old when I got it, a little rusted and a little iffy in spinning. New motor brushes and resoldering the power board fixed that, and it ran a treat. Main board had an AEG microcontroller ( was a standard one with the pins bent around the other way so it was a mirror off the app note just to confuse you, giveaway was the demoulding marks on top of the chip, along with an AEG part number). Eventually what killed it was main bearing failure, and the seal and bearing kit was available, but was near to the cost of the new machine I bought. It still ran, but the neighbours 2 floors down complained of the noise on spin cycle. Needed a new pump as well, it was running on a pump I modified after the original died by welding a new motor on the pump shaft to turn it.

As to dried caps, they are a problem in many things. Fixed lots of stuff over the years with bad caps. Some die quickly, some die slowly, some go violently and some just go quietly into the dark.

[Ajahn Lambda]

But they keep on creeping into areas they should stay out of.

I blame business majors.      


Seriously, IMHO/E, engineers make such better decisions as owners of companies than the people 'trained' to run them!

[FreeThinker]

When I was a Service engineer for a microfilm company we had a product meeting and were complaining en mass  about something (exactly what escapes me now) to be told by the service director that it was a good job that the 'engineers' didn't design the equipment because it would cost 10 the amount and never breakdown. Sad but true

[DarkPrince]

The really sad part is that they put all that crap in a washing machine! It washes clothes for crying out loud! Just put a big mechanical knob on it that'll last for 20 years. I don't need a washing machine with a control panel that looks like it came from a spaceship and is just waiting to kill over. Next (if not already) they'll stick a USB port on them for firmware updates. But that is an entirely different rant.

I had to laugh at that... Might as well as bring up an example while at it. Unfortunately I can not disagree entirely... I am fine with making things more complex, but I am not okay with making them break down intentionally. Electronics can last a long time too, if quality parts were used.

(One|Random) USB Example:
http://www.whirlpool.com/-[WTW7990XG]-1001711/WTW7990XG/
* Just look at the Features list, and the image gallery and you will find it. Firmware updates and the ability to customize wash cycles.

Ah thats funny. Okay I am done with off-topic.

[sonicj]

ROHS pretty much guarantees todays electronics won't be available to pass down to future generations.

tin whiskers

[T4P]

It's mostly due to tin whiskers that causes most electronics to break down in a two years or three .
RoHS ? Screw them .

[Rerouter]

thank you for that link... just another tip on how to make gear last forever,

[_Sin]

RoHS: Revenge of 'Harmless' Substances

[T4P]

RoHS: Revenge of 'Harmless' Substances

[IanJ]

Well, as luck would have it I was repairing a PSU for a NAS tonight and lo and behold......a popped Teapo (100uF 25v).

My pet peev continues.

Ian.

[SeanB]

Cleaned a PC on Monday, dust city. A few are starting to go, but have not gone into orbit yet. After the dustectomy it worked a lot better, no screaming fans and no BSOD on start up. Not the CPU caps, but random decoupling on the rest of the board. Not bad for a 5 year old unit.