Absolutely, looks like a typical generic brand Chinese cap that fails.
A good friend of mine recently told me that his TV is no longer working, by the symptoms he described I told him the caps were a likely culprit. His answer was "I don't think so, it is only 3 years old", oh boy, if you only knew....
The other issue is using capacitors at too close to max. voltage rating, that will also cause failure.
And poor ventilation, sometimes a 105 C part will survive a long time, and a 85 C part, slightly cheaper, will fail.
For the sake of a few cents (bought in millions, that becomes many dollars), the item loses its life span.
And remember, we used to buy TVs once in 8-10 years, now it is closer to 3-5, newer higher resolution, bigger screens, the small 32" TV are hard to sell or trade in at scrap value, nobody wants them.
I gave my 32" Samsung LED backlit TV (2014) for just $40 odd, with the wall bracket, shops were offering 2200 Rupees, they sell them on to buyers for 2500 Rupees!...$27 buying, $31 selling, roughly...
My machine operator's son bought a 43" LED blah blah blah for $265, 20% down, balance over 10 months, 2 year warranty...
Many brands are now developed and sold by the Chinese and other Far Eastern suppliers, and quality can be erratic.
And the brands themselves are sometimes owned by the Far Eastern owners, and the QC people may not be very attentive, if they exist at all.
In any case, all you can do is to replace the caps that fail, doing so before warranty ends could cause issues with warranty.
And how many people have that skill set anyway...taking apart the unit, changing caps and putting it all back together...
And poor ventilation, sometimes a 105 C part will survive a long time, and a 85 C part, slightly cheaper, will fail.
For the sake of a few cents (bought in millions, that becomes many dollars), the item loses its life span.
And remember, we used to buy TVs once in 8-10 years, now it is closer to 3-5, newer higher resolution, bigger screens, the small 32" TV are hard to sell or trade in at scrap value, nobody wants them.
I gave my 32" Samsung LED backlit TV (2014) for just $40 odd, with the wall bracket, shops were offering 2200 Rupees, they sell them on to buyers for 2500 Rupees!...$27 buying, $31 selling, roughly...
My machine operator's son bought a 43" LED blah blah blah for $265, 20% down, balance over 10 months, 2 year warranty...
Many brands are now developed and sold by the Chinese and other Far Eastern suppliers, and quality can be erratic.
And the brands themselves are sometimes owned by the Far Eastern owners, and the QC people may not be very attentive, if they exist at all.
In any case, all you can do is to replace the caps that fail, doing so before warranty ends could cause issues with warranty.
And how many people have that skill set anyway...taking apart the unit, changing caps and putting it all back together...
If you buy them from non-regular channels, meaning e-pay sellers, and others for which it is not a livelihood, or are out of reach legally, you are asking for trouble.
Best stick to known sellers, many fakes in India, re-labelled with pricier brands out to using a big can and putting a smaller one inside.
And some, like 16,000 uF / 160V are expensive, the good Chinese ones are like $10 at times, if you indeed can find Japanese in stock, that will be $40 each, and a Denon amp has like 8 at times...so either you abandon the job, or trust the seller.
Best stick to known sellers, many fakes in India, re-labelled with pricier brands out to using a big can and putting a smaller one inside.
And some, like 16,000 uF / 160V are expensive, the good Chinese ones are like $10 at times, if you indeed can find Japanese in stock, that will be $40 each, and a Denon amp has like 8 at times...so either you abandon the job, or trust the seller.
It irks me that the carbon climate initiate and “use less, pay more and buy high efficiency” is constantly in my face, and yet, the apps/hardware becomes so unresponsive in a just few years that I have to update to the new thing or it stops working.
I bought my parents the fastest version of a certain TV box in 2022 for their 2018 OLED smart TV (that no longer works on youtube etc) and the TV box is sandbagging already.
Planned obsolescence is the new subscription product model.
Ah, but there you have a cap I deliberately didn't mention in my list of more or less well-known Chinese brands like Lelon or Samxon.
This one I've seen in many cheap products under different names but always the same font: Chang, Cheng, Chong and ChengX and ChongX.
This thread was specifically aimed at the legitimate Chinese manufacturers not the knock off or 5th tier manufacturers.
Lelon are Taiwanese.
I use them without concern because I know of a local manufacturer of professional PA equipment that has used them for many years and hasn't had any issues with them. It helps that they are easy to get here because a local electronics chain sells only that brand.
That said, for my better projects I use the generally accepted better brands from Mouser et al.
I use them without concern because I know of a local manufacturer of professional PA equipment that has used them for many years and hasn't had any issues with them. It helps that they are easy to get here because a local electronics chain sells only that brand.
That said, for my better projects I use the generally accepted better brands from Mouser et al.
No, not really. Modern electrolytics are much smaller in general than they used to be. The replacement cap I found had solid specs and was more or less the same size.
I've a 10 year old laptop that still works, 1 change of battery at the 8 year mark, but alas the keyboard is failing, the escape key stopped working and the N key is dodgy - in theory I could try to replace the kbd but its a tricky job. I upgraded laptop last month... But these are high specification machines - you tend to get what you pay for (and its nice to have 15+ hours of battery life). I suspect I would have spent more over 10 years if I had bought cheap units.
The legitimate Chinese suppliers may have obtained good quality equipment from the major Japanese and European maker, either as license or as scrap, for example Philips sold the business to Vishay, but the fate of their Indian component business is unknown to me.
There was Websen, in West Bengal State, Rubycon license, IIRC, folded.
Uptron, again license from good source, closed...
These plants may have been shifted elsewhere for production.
Overall, Chinese quality and volumes have got better over time, to the extent that some names, as above, are known to be consistent in their quality, at least they are the same performance from batch to batch...
I expect that they will take a leap to solid electrolyte and SMD capacitors from there, and then compete with the famous names.
There was Websen, in West Bengal State, Rubycon license, IIRC, folded.
Uptron, again license from good source, closed...
These plants may have been shifted elsewhere for production.
Overall, Chinese quality and volumes have got better over time, to the extent that some names, as above, are known to be consistent in their quality, at least they are the same performance from batch to batch...
I expect that they will take a leap to solid electrolyte and SMD capacitors from there, and then compete with the famous names.
Marantz is a trading company owned by Americans, the models are developed in China by no-name / white label makers, who sell the complete units to Marantz, who simply market it.
I think the suppliers are at liberty to sell the same product with slightly different appearance to other traders as well.
I do not think they have many people in R&D or QC at Marantz, Denon is also owned by the same people.
I think the suppliers are at liberty to sell the same product with slightly different appearance to other traders as well.
I do not think they have many people in R&D or QC at Marantz, Denon is also owned by the same people.
Hi davidsrsb,
Were these the fluorescent tube replacement lamps, LED driver modules, or something else?
That's a good question, and I'm also curious, as I found most teardowns of CFLs and retrofit LED bulbs to be quite destructive (there are exceptions).
Early failures are not all down to the brand and type of cap. Years ago, I maintained some 20 lights in a building that would be on all night.
Of a particular brand and type of CFL I could also buy an identical looking rebrand of some department store. Inside they were different, the ballast was a simpler design in the rebrand.
The A-brand seemed to fail on burned out electrodes but the rebrand blew the main filter capacitor. The A-brand had Aishi caps which I've NEVER seen fail, but the rebrand had the 'Bright' brand of caps. At first I thought these Bright caps were subpar on quality, but then I started to find blown Rubycons as well.
Maybe the rebrand used a design of ballast that was somehow more demanding of those filter caps, leading to higher ripple current, more heat, etc..
Switching from CFLs to retrofit LED bulbs wasn't much good either, these just get too hot to live up to their expected lifespan (only the lower output ones did).
In 2015 I changed the luminaires to integrated LED. "Non replaceable parts" I hear you say (which is not true as the driver and LED board are separate items), but more importantly, I haven't had a single failure for the past 8+ years and they've exceeded their rated lifetime by 2-3 times now.
What are the caps inside the drivers? Aishi.
Early failures are not all down to the brand and type of cap. Years ago, I maintained some 20 lights in a building that would be on all night.
Of a particular brand and type of CFL I could also buy an identical looking rebrand of some department store. Inside they were different, the ballast was a simpler design in the rebrand.
The A-brand seemed to fail on burned out electrodes but the rebrand blew the main filter capacitor. The A-brand had Aishi caps which I've NEVER seen fail, but the rebrand had the 'Bright' brand of caps. At first I thought these Bright caps were subpar on quality, but then I started to find blown Rubycons as well.
Maybe the rebrand used a design of ballast that was somehow more demanding of those filter caps, leading to higher ripple current, more heat, etc..
Switching from CFLs to retrofit LED bulbs wasn't much good either, these just get too hot to live up to their expected lifespan (only the lower output ones did).
In 2015 I changed the luminaires to integrated LED. "Non replaceable parts" I hear you say (which is not true as the driver and LED board are separate items), but more importantly, I haven't had a single failure for the past 8+ years and they've exceeded their rated lifetime by 2-3 times now.
What are the caps inside the drivers? Aishi.