On Mon, 07 May 2012 15:54:21 -0400, Tony Miklos
wrote:

Nothing like good old planned obsolescence. How much would it really
cost the manufacturers to substitute electrolytic caps with somewhat
higher power ratings? I'd gladly pay an additional $0.20 - $0.50 per CFL
or fixture for substantially longer mean time before failure.

As long as electronic ballasts are lasting (fairly long in my opinion)
I'd bet they are already using a high quality cap where it really
counts... on the high frequency circuits. Electrolytic caps often
suffer from ESR, and the only place this is normally a problem is the
high freq switching circuits and if they where using cheap caps there,
the life of a ballast may be only a year or two. I'm having much better
luck with el cheapo "lights of america" brand ones. No complaints here.

Is this bad capacitor thing "planned obsolescence"?
It must be. That's all I hear in the last decade. Computers, and other
electronics, ballasts, and the list goes on.......

Back in the 1960's and 70's I worked on electronics as a hobby and did
repairs. Much of the stuff was old vacuum tube stuff and early
transistor stuff. I *rarely* had to replace caps. It was normally a
tube, transistor, bad connection, or a bad potentiometer. When a cap
went bad, the device did nto stop working, just there would be hum in
the speaker from a weak filter cap. Much of the stuff I worked on was
20 or 30 years old. In fact I still have a 1940's tube type shortwave
radio and it still has the original caps and works well.

You'd think that with our technology that caps would be BETTER than they
used to be..... instead they're junk. If they want to keep putting
these foreign made junk caps in our electronics, maybe everyone should
stop buying the crap until they begin using good caps. I'm sure they
can make good ones......