WARNING! DO NOT BUY ALIEXPRESS CAPACITORS!

[Analog Kid]

Change title?

 DO NOT BUY ALIEXPRESS CCP commie junk

Now that's a really, really intelligent take on this. NOT.

Yeah, sure, Ali Express is a wholly-owned and controlled subsidiary of the Chinese Communist Party, whose sole mission is to fuck up things for people buying electronic components there.

Honestly, how do you manage to make it through the day? You must be constantly checking under your bed and in your closet for boogeymen out to get you.

[SteveThackery]

It's just that China is nowadays "land of everything". You will find both the most reliable partners, and most horrible con artists from there.

I have mostly very good experience with technical co-operation with the Chinese, and their customer support. It is actually possible to get comments from a knowledgeable person who knows the product in and out, by email, within a day or two.

(I was going to step out at this point, but I feel I should describe the other half of my thoughts about China for the sake of balance.)

When it comes to business-to-business relationships the situation is very different. In my experience Chinese companies are usually excellent in every way. Their people are highly educated (often much higher than us in the West), highly motivated, and highly professional. I was very impressed by some work Huawei did in competition with several other major players in the industry. In my opinion they beat the others comfortably.

At risk of more generalisations, I think the Chinese work ethic is way better than ours in the West. I've seen it all the way from school children to adult professionals. I think we in the West are taking our foot off the gas pedal now that so many of us have an adequate - or better - standard of living. Our "hunger" has faded. I believe we are in a slow decline, much as every great civilisation before us has grown, peaked, declined and disappeared. I would say America is a hundred years behind Europe, but I expect it will go the same way. China is in the ascendant, and it deserves it based on what I said in the previous paragraph.  I think future historians will see this as the "Chinese century". (For context, I think we can safely say that the 20th century was the American century - their achievements were outstanding; the 19th and 18th centuries were probably Britain's heyday; the 17th and 16th were surely the height of Spanish influence.)

I fear the decline of democracy and Western values. It will be interesting to see to what degree - if any - China adopts those values. Democracy, maybe? I doubt it.

None of this contradicts the outrage I feel when I get lied to and ripped off.

[SteveThackery]

You said China is going after UK because ... well, whatever. And something should be done about that? Because you are under threat from China?

Actually I don't recall saying the "going after" part. Surely the UK must be an irrelevance to China? It's a tiny country with very little clout, and already circling the drain. I don't believe "something must be done" - the UK deserves to go down the pan. I was wondering whether China deserves to do well, and largely I think it does, although my concerns about the horribly oppressive regime and the terrible human rights issue give me pause. It's a tricky one.

[Zero999]

When I look into the mirror the person staring back me has absolutely zero psychopathy. To the extent that it is sometimes a nuisance. Fairness, trust and morality are the foundations of who I am. My empathy is sometimes too much for comfort, and I am stricken with guilt if I do something wrong, or say something unkind.

So you don't know me.

Steve, you and me already had this kind of argument on this forum. You said China is going after UK because ... well, whatever. And something should be done about that? Because you are under threat from China? Then you regurgitated all that stupid british propaganda nobody with a couple brain cells could believe in? I told you  it couldn't be taken seriously, but here you are again at it.
 
This is what I know about you. Not that you are a bad guy, but obviously you have some kind of disorder when the word China is heard. Perhaps it is some kind of infectious disease because you indeed are not the only one suffering from that here.
 

Anyway, @Aldo22 is right: this is very off topic! I don't intend to say any more.

OK, then I will also shut up. Just remember, this is an international forum and -at least- some of us, find that china bashing behaviour, not only ludicrous but also disgusting.

I think it was obvious he didn't mean everyone in China is bad.

The odd thing about your response was the anti-Western slant, when concepts such as anti-racism and that we should treat foreigners equally originated in the West. Such values are scarce in the rest of the world. It's fairly routine for foreigners to be overcharged and denied jobs, for no other reason than being foreign, in most non-Western countries.

Anyway, I don't think the the Chinese are bad, just that they are different to us Westerners. They have fundamentally different values and culture and there's nothing wrong with that.

[SteveThackery]

On China being bad and Chinese morality, don't kid yourself, it can be found every where. As soon as money is involved people can do bad things. Also ask yourself, how is it that China came to be in this position. The west provided the opportunity to get there, because big companies saw opportunities to save money, and the general public was only to happy with cheaper products.

That some abuse this stuff for cheap to sell fakes or rubbish is a shame for sure, but it is not just Chinese mentality, it is the mentality of a lot of people, rich and poor.

(...)

So bottom line, bad people are everywhere, it is not just a Chinese mentality.

Of course that last bit is true, but I don't buy the argument that as soon as money is involved we're all as bad. I buy, and have bought, loads of stuff from Europe (and here in the UK), some stuff from the US, quite a lot from Japan, and some stuff from India. To the best of my knowledge I have never bought anything that was fake, mislabelled or dangerous from America, Europe or Japan. The stuff I've got from India is sometimes of dubious quality, but I've never known it be mis-described.

So no: it's not right to suggest that when it comes to money we're all as bad.

[grumpydoc]

Why would you expect a slower failure at x2.4 overvoltage?

Because in a decent brand there's going to be some margin for overrating and 24V is not a massive stress for even a thin oxide layer.

I can't exactly duplicate the conditions we would be talking about because I couldn't quickly put my hand on a 10V cap - but did find a Panasonic branded 100uF 16V cap. My bench PSU (HP U8002A) is notionally 30V but will output 31V so nearly 2x the rated voltage which is not that far off..

After 5 minutes of absolutely nothing happening I got bored and turned the PSU off.

But I have (oops) put caps in the wrong way round a couple of times and the result is about what we saw in the video.

The Slo Mo guys had some fun overvolting caps - but they didn't mention, unless I missed it, how much voltage they applied. They'd got a variac on the bench though so presumably not 24VDC

[UnijunctionTransistor]

The problem was because the capacitor is labeled in metric volts, and you must have applied imperial volts.

I know; it is a pretty lame attempt at humor. But I wanted to defuse this thread’s bickering, it has become nasty.

[SteveThackery]

But I have (oops) put caps in the wrong way round a couple of times and the result is about what we saw in the video.

Isn't the end of the capacitor, where it is scored, supposed to split open, relieving the pressure and thus preventing a big bang?

[ME]

i buy from ali and ebay as the reputable folks ie farnell etc have ripoff postage etc,or 500 min order.

[grumpydoc]

Isn't the end of the capacitor, where it is scored, supposed to split open, relieving the pressure and thus preventing a big bang?

Physically bigger caps, yes, but for small electrolytics the case isn't large enough.

[Perrold]

You get what you pay for and time is money. Yet to encounter a situation where gambling on components bought directly from china makes the least sense. The few times I did it with things like RF connectors and such the variation in unit to unit quality was obvious. Having spent time troubleshooting a project because of a bad chinese connector right out of the bag I think I won't cheap out next time. Small cheap passive components let alone semiconductors are a hard no.

The fewer times I bought things from china in a professional fashion there were ironclad agreements drawn up by the legal department to hold the US distributor fully accountable. The moment stuff arrived it was either extensively tested in house or sent out to a lab.

[pcprogrammer]

On China being bad and Chinese morality, don't kid yourself, it can be found every where. As soon as money is involved people can do bad things. Also ask yourself, how is it that China came to be in this position. The west provided the opportunity to get there, because big companies saw opportunities to save money, and the general public was only to happy with cheaper products.

That some abuse this stuff for cheap to sell fakes or rubbish is a shame for sure, but it is not just Chinese mentality, it is the mentality of a lot of people, rich and poor.

(...)

So bottom line, bad people are everywhere, it is not just a Chinese mentality.

Of course that last bit is true, but I don't buy the argument that as soon as money is involved we're all as bad. I buy, and have bought, loads of stuff from Europe (and here in the UK), some stuff from the US, quite a lot from Japan, and some stuff from India. To the best of my knowledge I have never bought anything that was fake, mislabelled or dangerous from America, Europe or Japan. The stuff I've got from India is sometimes of dubious quality, but I've never known it be mis-described.

And yet it happens either intentionally or unintentionally. Just lately in the Netherlands a batch of 1kg "cola bottles"* of Haribo contained cannabis.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/29/haribo-recalls-sweets-in-the-netherlands-after-traces-of-cannabis-found

Nestle and the French government are involved in a scandal around bad water being sold.
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/environment/article/2025/05/19/how-nestle-and-the-french-government-tried-to-conceal-the-perrier-scandal_6741426_114.html

I'm sure there will be many more of these type of issues in every country in the world.

* straight translation of the Dutch name for these sweets.

So no: it's not right to suggest that when it comes to money we're all as bad.

And that is also not what I wrote.

As soon as money is involved people can do bad things.

Money CAN drive people to do bad things, this does not imply that every body does bad things when money is involved.

[tske]

https://www.reddit.com/r/avoidchineseproducts/top/?t=all

[tske]

When I see people buy Chinese shits, I pity them.
When I see people buy Chinese shits then complain, I laugh at them.
China is a worthless country, which should not exist at all.

[pcprogrammer]

Buying most types of electronic components at Ebay or Aliexpress is just the wrong thing to do. All the Chinese con artists are there. And yet, something like LCSC is not any worse than e.g. Mouser or Digikey, despite being Chinese.

For production type development, yes, not a good idea to get your parts from Ebay or Aliexpress, but as a hobbyist it can save you a lot of money, especially with all the offers and bonuses plus the free shipping they provide. But always be aware of what you buy and test it when it arrives. Again for a hobbyist not such an issue, because, at least for me, time is not always money.

In my opinion, Ebay is far worse by the way, because there hardly is a buyer protection setup like on Aliexpress.

Getting your parts from so called reputable stores like Mouser, Digikey, etc, does not mean that the components you buy do not come from China. Most of the components will be manufactured in China because it is cheap. And a lot of the same components can be found on Aliexpress for less money, but yes there is more of a risk that you get lesser quality or even fakes.

It is a choice!

So taking advice from a single buyer not to buy capacitors on Aliexpress, just because they got a bad batch is nonsense. A better advice is to always be aware when buying on Aliexpress that things might be fake.

[pcprogrammer]

When I see people buy Chinese shits, I pity them.
When I see people buy Chinese shits then complain, I laugh at them.
China is a worthless country, which should not exist at all.

Take a look at most of the products you have in your possession. A good chance that the label says "Made in China"

What I pity is the people that can only see in black and white and nothing in between.

[anvoice]

China is a worthless country, which should not exist at all.

That's just pathetic.

[bdunham7]

DO NOT BUY ALIEXPRESS CAPACITORS! 1uF 50V (RS branded) capacitor from this package https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005006515170970.html just exploded into my eyes when I was debugging a new board. TWICE!
After testing another in a box, I am sure they are all fake... Rated maybe for like 10V because the explosion is very violent 😄 Take a look 😄

Maybe don't buy capacitor kits priced at 1% of what they should cost from "bargain garden" sellers that also have sex toys and athletic socks.  You can get some halfway decent stuff from AliExpress but you have to be careful and lucky.

I don't know how you distinguish between "fake" and "poor quality" unless RS is a legit capacitor brand I haven't heard of.  The only time I've seen explosions like that were when small non-vented caps were subject to AC from a failed rectifier.  I suppose reverse polarity would do something similar if the current were high.  You'd need to test further to know whether you should toss the kit or not.  These capacitors may be marginal or they may be total crap.  FWIW I still salvage caps from discarded equipment for test and prototype purposes and then buy from reputable distributors when I want to make or repair something. 

[tatel]

When I see people buy Chinese shits, I pity them.
When I see people buy Chinese shits then complain, I laugh at them.
China is a worthless country, which should not exist at all.

Yeah, that virus is spreading. Like a wildfire in summer. This is just entitled westerners seeing China doing extremely well, and willing to go to war to protect their "rights" from competition.

Too retarded to understand their billionaires sold them just to increase profits.

As the song from Jethro Tull says, "Thick as a brick"

Disgusting.

[SteveThackery]

Yeah, that virus is spreading. Like a wildfire in summer. This is just entitled westerners seeing China doing extremely well, and willing to go to war to protect their "rights" from competition.

That's certainly not where I'm coming from. I don't want to stop China competing with the West, and I'm not complaining about it. My complaint is specifically about cheating and lying, and selling dangerous products with fake CE markings. That is unacceptable whoever is doing it, and right now the only people who have done that to me are Chinese.

One of my electronic devices (made in the UK) failed, so I contacted the manufacturer who said he'd had a batch of bad power transistors, and all of them were failing. Further investigation showed that someone in China was encapsulating signal transistors in power transistor packages. This is the sort of thing I hate: it is calculated, bare-faced robbery. I would hate it just as much if it were a British or American person doing it. But it never is.

[pcprogrammer]

This is the sort of thing I hate: it is calculated, bare-faced robbery. I would hate it just as much if it were a British or American person doing it. But it never is.

Keep on dreaming.

You might not have come across it directly yourself, but this happens everywhere. The things people do to save a penny can be awful. And to clarify, I'm not saying that every person on the world is doing this, but I'm sure you would go bankrupt if you have to feed the ones that do.

That is what I mean that things are not black and white. I also think that you know this just as well.

[Aldo22]

One of my electronic devices (made in the UK) failed, so I contacted the manufacturer who said he'd had a batch of bad power transistors, and all of them were failing. Further investigation showed that someone in China was encapsulating signal transistors in power transistor packages.

Did the UK manufacturer buy these transistors via Aliexpress?

[tatel]

That's certainly not where I'm coming from. I don't want to stop China competing with the West, and I'm not complaining about it. My complaint is specifically about cheating and lying, and selling dangerous products with fake CE markings. That is unacceptable whoever is doing it, and right now the only people who have done that to me are Chinese.

One of my electronic devices (made in the UK) failed, so I contacted the manufacturer who said he'd had a batch of bad power transistors, and all of them were failing. Further investigation showed that someone in China was encapsulating signal transistors in power transistor packages. This is the sort of thing I hate: it is calculated, bare-faced robbery. I would hate it just as much if it were a British or American person doing it.

Please note I was not replying to you.

But it never is.

Well in the 80s here in Spain we had the "toxic syndrome". Officially the cause was denaturalized rapeseed oil, but that doesn't hold water. True cause was a farmer putting some german pesticide into his tomatoes less than 15 days until harvest. Moreover he stocked that pesticide in just some shed under Almeria's sun, so it got over 40º celsius so it became some kind of Sarin/Tabun/VX. Point 1 is: it was a spaniard, not a chinese guy.  Point 2 is: even WHO said the rapeseed oil red herring was true (and still does) The fact that there were affected people that never consumed that rapeseed oil doesn't seem to matter, even for the WHO. Moreover, sellers of that rapeseed oil extracted the denaturalizing agent before selling it. It has been proven on trial it couldn't make suffer from symptoms like any nervous agent, yet officially it is still the cause of that syndrome. Again, even for WHO.

What's the probability for WHO to have UK/US high-ranking officers?

Not to mention, UK and US are the main enablers of a genocide happening right now, just in case anyone want to use "things of the past" alibi. Yet that doesn't seem to matter to you. Instead you are fuming for a bunch of bad caps.

Please don't be so blindsided

[PascalNE]

I'm not interested in a big debate so I'll just say this china exports $917,000,000,000 of electronics every year the UK only exports $27,000,000,000 so yes there is a lot of cheap rubbish but that's still only a tiny percentage of what they export it just seems like a lot since you are particularly exposed to it going on Aliexpress etc.

It is also in no way a cultural thing saying "Fuck me, that's like they're a nation of psychopaths" is offensive and obviously untrue, there is no cultural difference that makes people more likely to be dishonest.  For the UK you only have to look back to the 80s when some British products were seen as inferior quality to more innovative Japanese counterparts. And nowadays all you have to do is look at the quality of our new build houses (absolutely terrible lowest cost possible) 

 Additionally, I think it is clear the lack of low quality products from the UK is only a symptom of economic development, low skill manufacturing has left the UK and only high skill remains so quality (and prices) are higher for British made goods. So when you think of electronics you are right there isn't much bad quality British electronics but electronics only makes up 2.26% of our GDP.

In conclusion, people are the same everywhere, no country is wholly good or bad and there's probably no point in arguing about it. 

[Zenith]

So taking advice from a single buyer not to buy capacitors on Aliexpress, just because they got a bad batch is nonsense. A better advice is to always be aware when buying on Aliexpress that things might be fake.

I've bought things from Aliexpress and I've been pleased with them.

I wouldn't buy components from there because I've heard too many stories about fakes. It's not worth the risk to save not much. Bad components cause a lot of frustration and wasted time, and I prefer to buy from Farnell etc.

I'm wary about buying components on ebay, particularly electrolytics, for the same reason. There are a few ebay sellers you can assume don't sell rubbish, such as Langrex.