Failure of electrolytic caps in fairly new equipment is nothing new, and has
actually become common as manufacurers try using cheaper components to
attain the highest profits.

The throwaway society has been in development for decades. Every year
products are made to new lower quality standards, with the intended effect
of lowering everyone's expectations of any reliability or quality, IMO.

But typical shoppers just love those $30 DVD players, and can't get enough
of 'em.

It seems that the counterfeit electrolyte story will never go away, as
someone always has to mention it almost any time capacitors are discussed.

Manufacturers choose to build equipment with capacitors that are minimumally
acceptable for the circuits the caps are used in.
It's not that there aren't any quality caps with adequate specifications,
the problem is that better quality caps cost more.

I think about 2 years of proper operation for new consumer electronic gear,
is probably about the average lifetime before repair or replacement is
required.

The higher priced consumer goods (big plasma TVs, etc) are probably going to
be a bit more reliable since a large outraged consumer group might get into
class action, but probably not many would call their elected representatives
or a consumer watchdog group for a $40 to $200 item that fails to work in a
year.
Then again, the retailer or manufacturer might just say that the buyer
should've bought the extended warranty.

The consumer is always the one that gets to find out how long a product will
last.

--
Cheers,
WB
..............


"Joe" wrote in message
...
I bought a Philips DVP 642 DVD player in December 2005, and 2 months shy
of 2 years, it failed - having symptoms of a well-known problem with a
certain capacitor in the power supply.

Well before the problem occurred, I had come across a description of the
failure and how to fix it by replacing a particular capacitor on the power
supply board.

It turns out that the particular capacitor supposedly would likely be
leaking some electrolyte or be bulging - it was doing neither.

When I opened up the player and left it turned on for a few minutes, that
particular capacitor became very much hotter than any other capacitor, so
I replaced it, and the player is still working now, some two years later.

A couple of years ago, I bought a Digital Stream DTX9900 digital to analog
converter box for my old TV. Son of a ... it too failed at about the 22
month mark. I opened up the case, and there it was - a bulging capacitor
on the power supply board.

I replaced that capacitor a couple of weeks ago, and the converter has
since been working.

Anybody else noticed any coincidences like these? About the only
similarity in use between these two boxes is that they both are on
"stand-by" power 24-7. Other than that, I use the converter a lot more
than the DVD player.

--- Joe