David Nebenzahl wrote:
There's a lot of discussion here about the quality and longevity of
electrolytic capacitors, and to read much of it, one would think that
these are the most failure-prone of all electronic components, and that
any piece of equipment you may have around the house (or lab) that uses
them is likely to fail any day now.

I can't really dispute any of this, except to say that this is not my
experience at all.

Around 2002 there was a big scandal about it. A Tiwanese company hired an
engineer to work for a Japanese company that made electrolyte (the stuff
inside the capacitor) with the intention of them bringing their trade
secrets back to Tiawan for the new factory the company was opening.

The Japanese were on to the scam, and allowed the engineer to learn everything
they needed EXCEPT a preservative for the electrolyte. It was pretty sneaky
because the capacitors produced passed every test, but would start to pop open
after about 6 months of use.

Almost every company on the island bought from them because their price was
around half of the Japanese company. Within a year, everything that contained
their capacitors failed.

In the end, besides millions of items being replaced, it taught everyone
in the business exactly how long something had to last before people
stopped complaining when it failed and just replaced it.

Geoff.

--
Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel N3OWJ/4X1GM