Bad capacitors?

[JohnR66]

I recall hearing that there were (are) poor quality electrolytic capacitors being produced. I have a plug in wall transformer powering a LED array. I noticed it started having a strobing effect. I scoped the supply and found a full wave trace that was not filtered. The internal capacitor seemed to have gone open. The wall pack can't be opened so I had to discard.

Any brand of capacitor this affected? I remember some talk about this a few years ago.

 

[reptiles]

Since many consumer electronics are disposable these days; the caps and other components are frequently not designed with longevity in mind.

Like most things, there ARE good quality caps out there. You might have to buy from http://www.digikey.com/ or another decent supplier.

A tip to selecting better caps is to look at the max voltage as well as the max temp. The high temperature caps are especially well made, imho.

Cheers,

Mark