More capacitor

[Dai H.]

Another fake cap hecho in China:

[img:800:514]http://media.lelombrik.net/27001-27500/ ... dce300.jpg[/img]

Wonder if the Rubycon is a fake too.

the inside cap looks older, so I suppose if you are an outfit making fake caps, you have a good reason to find (and purchase) mass quantities of cheap old stock alu electros. Maybe part of the deal is that they last long enough to pass a cursory check. Scary.

edit: just to add that the Rubycon looks real (but old) to me, because:

a) it looks bigger than usual (for a modern cap--alu electros have generally gotten smaller for the same capacitance and voltage rating)

b) the shrink wrap on the outside looks beat up and scratched, possibly from being knocked around in a bag or some container

might also look for datsheets (does it actually exist? Do the markings match/look genuine? etc. etc.), compare prices to get a general idea of how much it typically costs (bigger outfits should be able to offer lower prices by buying in quantity. They have the financial muscle to store big stocks in warehouses, etc.--as I understand it)

[Andy Le Blanc]

use authorized distributors.......

It is way too easy to be fleeced otherwise.....

This is the direct result of republican free market policies, the market is left to
self-correct with little to no government intervention. We are the market.

Works great until it kills, are we responsible for the public safety.

[gearhead]

use authorized distributors.......

It is way too easy to be fleeced otherwise.....

This is the direct result of republican free market policies, the market is left to
self-correct with little to no government intervention.

There have been counterfeit parts problems for decades in the auto industry with even more dire safety issues. How about counterfeit music tapes and CDs, DVDs, designer clothing? Or lets throw NAFTA into the mix.

Blaming it on one party or another is off the mark. Besides, when have these issues popped up on a number of boards? Definitely since Nov 2008. Not that I'm saying it's the Dems fault at all, but don't play that game.

[Aurora]

I totally agree with Andy - use regular, well-known distributors. At least that miniizes the risk.
The fakers seems to concentrate on niche components, like in this case HV caps. The HiFi crowd is being plagued by fake, sought-after and otherwise discontinued semiconductors, and the sometimes the idiot fakers doesn't even care to present the same footprint or package. Toshiba's 2SK389 lownoise dual JFET is sometimes presented in a 3-pin TO92 package, whereas the original have a 6pin in-line package.....some ppl seem to just avoid any regular brain activity.
Unless one is really looking for some special, hard-to-find parts, exact replacements for this-or-that, there can't be very many $ to save using E-bay ( or the likes of). At least it should be concidered a calculated risk, as Ebay and even worse, regular albeit obscure net shops specializing in fakes seems to be the order of the day..... <sigh>

[FYL]

use authorized distributors.......

Authorized distribs can also get caught by fakes. A recent example: Newegg - a very serious etailer - has shipped hundreds of fake Intel i7 processors.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54tDqM5- ... r_embedded

This is the direct result of republican free market policies, the market is left to self-correct with little to no government intervention.

Free markets have nothing to do here: fakes also exist in heavily regulated markets. Some of the worst fakes come from state monopolies...

Works great until it kills, are we responsible for the public safety.

That's why amps should be properly built using fully qualified and tested components.

[Structo]

Wow!
Fake PC processors?

What's next?

Fake air bags in cars?

[Richie]

maybe those Toyota Prius have some cracker jack componets,making the cars run away..
Some of the caps, you should be able to measure them,and when you see they are not even close to the value, know that something is up,without even taking them apart.

[Structo]

Yes the Toyota fiasco is interesting.
Are we to believe that these cars that have been on the road for several years all of a sudden decide that they will not obey the driver any longer?

First it was because people were putting their floor mats back in improperly interfering with the operation of the gas pedal.
Then they said it was an electrical problem.
Then they said it was a software problem since these cars are apparently fly by wire and there is no mechanical link between the pedal and throttle.

I wonder if there was a recent firmware update that went wrong on these cars and it would be interesting to see if the cars that have been accelerating had been in the repair shop for other reasons and while there the technicians did a firmware update.

Remember the Audi 5000 problem more than a decade ago?
It just about ruined Audi.
I believe that they concluded it was operator error.
But one story I saw on TV showed the car of a woman that was pulling into her garage. All of a sudden the car shot forward running over her young son and killing him in the process before driving through the wall that was in front of the car.
They said that people were getting confused and pushing on the gas pedal mistaking it for the brake pedal.......OK maybe a few cases could be because of that but all of them?

They showed a picture of the brake pedal, it was clearly bent almost straight because she testified that she put both feet on it and pushed as hard as she could.

Now I'm not a conspiracy nut, but it sure is curious that since the USA car companies were suffering so bad financially that all of a sudden these foreign cars started malfunctioning.

[FYL]

Now I'm not a conspiracy nut, but it sure is curious that since the USA car companies were suffering so bad financially that all of a sudden these foreign cars started malfunctioning.

[Structo]

OK, I am a nut.

[ckpop]

Not to make this go off the subject but what is happening now is most large compaines own "shell companies" that if something is done illegally or a defective product they are not held directly responsible. The shell company takes the legal fall and they are still able to operate. When the profits out way the consequence it just becomes the cost of business.
Why should these companies change if they are legally not going to be responsible.

Electronics to large pharmaceutical. clothing, you name it. The only ones that suffer are the smaller business owners and me and you when we buy products made oversea's. Everyone complains but does nothing about it and I even admit to that everytime I go to walmart. We are the blame because we accept it.

[Aurora]

FWIW-the Toyota problem is worldwide....seems more like some unit or component lifetime failure....???

[phsyconoodler]

Simple solution:buy American and Canadian made products.It's a lot easier to regulate and confront a company that isn't overseas.

China is for Chinese food.And tubes.Unless someone decides to open up over on this side of the pond.
Cheap is as cheap does.I do not use cheap overseas stuff.Period.

[Structo]

I keep wondering if it was a firmware update that went bad.

Seems like all of a sudden this stuff started happening unless the news agencies once again sensationalized it to make it sound worse than it is, which is not unheard of.

Like small plane crashes. They happen all the time, but when one happens in your local area, the newspaper or other media look for more small airplane crashes and it seems like it is epidemic.

Not saying that is what happened here but just the same........

So customer A brings his Prius in for scheduled maintenance.
While it is in the shop the technician plugs the cars computer into the diagnostic computer in the shop.
Customer A's car firmware is not up to date, so the tech downloads the new version into the cars computer.

Customer A is driving home when all of a sudden the car takes off.

I believe all the cars affected are "fly by wire", right?
In other words, there is no mechanical link between the gas pedal and throttle.
It is handled by software and servos.

But if it was bad software, it would seem that the correlation of the maintenance and the problem would be deduced early on.

Just something I thought of the other day.
But it would seem that would be easy to figure out if it was bad software.

Anyway, NASA will take a look at it, costing billions of dollars and it will be a bad O ring on the muffler bearing that is the culprit.

[dcribbs1412]

Tom
it seems we may be on the brink of some great technology
back in 1998 this was said

At a computer expo (COMDEX) Bill Gates reportedly compared the computer industry with the auto industry and stated "If GM had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving twenty-five dollar cars that got 1000 miles/gallon." Recently General Motors addressed this comment by releasing the statement : "Yeah, but would you want your car to crash twice a day?"

you think Microsoft had anything to do with the "firmware updates"