Wurth inductor, real or fake?

Hi,
I am building a few TPA3255 amps and unfortunately, in the few months that it took me to draft all the PCBs etc, the inductors i have chosen and the alternatives that i know of have gone out of stock in the suppliers available to me :-/ I am too slow i guess...
Anyways, i took the chance and ordered 3 of them to Aliexpress. Overall i dont have a bad experience with Aliexpress, and i believe one can get genuine parts there, but well, not having any known legit example at hand, i have no idea if what i received has any chance to be legit.
The part in question is Wurth Elektronik 7443631000 10uH 16A power inductor. See pictures below. The markings and date codes seem possible, the only thing i am missing is a dot indicating the beginning of the winding but i am not sure if this is always there.
Some details that i think could help are:
the black enclosure has a shine to it, it is not matt, most specially the sides
on top and bottom, the rim of the enclosure is a little higher than the inner surface, i hope i captured it well in the picture below
there is a very visible mark where the joint of the top and bottom is.

Anyone has any of these or similar from Wurth or even a good picture that can help me to validate these? thanks a lot!

1719499795770.png


1719499858391.png
 
  • Like
Reactions: analog_sa
I am a dyed in the wool functionalist.

So IF specs are met (inductance) which can be measured, add DCR to it, and foot prints match my PCB (based on datasheet footprints) they are "original" enough.

Living in Argentina 10000 km away from any major supplier makes that the sensible choice.

Did you buy "just enough" or you bought some extra?
Meaning: can you possibly sacrifice one in testing?
 
  • Like
Reactions: MRamone
You may have a look at Coiltronics (as expensive as Würth) or ferrocore (from Poland, less expensive), for instance
Thanks for the tip, I see the equivalent ferrocore at TME, there is 1 in stock 😀 and if I understand correctly, they will not restock them.
These AliExpress ones I got them quite cheap (a bit under 4 euros each with coins), might buy a couple more and wait for mouser to restock. If July 5 is true, doesn't really matter.
Lesson learned, chose very common footprints only.
Yes, I originally choose these because of the reported performance and lower height compared to coilcraft.
 
Do those have enough air gap to remain linear at operating power? The usual 10 mu iron powder toroids will drop inductance gracefully if “overloaded”. And still have enough inductance to effectively filter at the higher currents. Those might hit rated 16 amps peak and whack- inductance drops to a few tens of nanohenries. IMO, the wrong curve for a class D amp, unless it’s small enough to keep peak inductor current in the linear region.
 
A little bit more on this, if someone has interest.
Asked one of the aliexpress sellers that sells the Wurth branded inductors, he shared this:

1719744072921.png


the info sheet belongs to Powerhen part PH20-103KL, and the full datasheet can be found here:

http://en.powerhen.com/uploadfile/202401/PH20.pdf

http://en.powerhen.com/tiepiandadianliugongludiangan/336.html

The values are pretty much the same as in the Wurth datasheet. I remember reading in the TPA3255 thread that Wurth might be just rebranding their inductors (a service that powerhen offers), and i suspect it might be true... Nevermind, be it the same or not, i dont think it will make much difference.
 
Last edited: