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It's been ages since I had to do some full on recapping, but I find myself repairing the same Samsung 50" TV that has 4 dead caps again 4-5 years later. So I always got my caps from Badcaps.net, but noticed that the owner is finally shutting down selling them, as a result he isn't buying any new caps for inventory.

I'm used to Rubi, Samxon and some Nichion low ESR caps, but was curious what the feeling is on some of these crazy cheap kits that are undoubtedly Chinese upstarts. Granted, there are a lot of Chinese products that are damn good now, and Chinese products aren't what they were back in 2002 when Badcaps started up due to the poor quality.

Anyone have some insight into these kits that come with several hundred caps for 20-30? I'm no where near as "afraid" of Chinese products as I once was. Hell, I'm using a One plus 3t and I just bought a Firman generator yesterday over a Honda that cost 4 times as much.

I only need 4 capacitors so nothing serious and I'd prefer not to spend $4-5 a cap like some suggest with the Panasonic caps.

Are caps at this same point? Where people hold onto archaic beliefs that only Japanese capactiors are worth using?

Digi-key, Mouser, Newark.

eBay is also an option but the odds of getting counterfeits are a lot higher.

I stocked up during the capacitor plague. What voltages, values, and lead spacing are you looking for?

Digikey is good for small quantities (minimum order is usually ~10), but if you really need several hundred they are probably not the most economical option.

If you need large numbers and don't care about shipping time, you could try alibaba. There's always Huaqiangbei too.

just brew it! wrote:

I stocked up during the capacitor plague. What voltages, values, and lead spacing are you looking for?

470uF 25v x 2
820uF 25v x 2

I'd have to check the lead spacing, I've got room to go up or even down a little in spacing, even so for height to a certain extent.

I still figured it couldn't be bad to have some spares around, so the idea of buying a "variety pack" seemed appealing. The small handful of caps I have left aren't over 16v.

If it's a device you care about, why go for random caps with no provenance?

But Chinese or not, I like to try to match ESR and ripple current ratings as well.

Welch wrote:

just brew it! wrote:

I stocked up during the capacitor plague. What voltages, values, and lead spacing are you looking for?

470uF 25v x 2
820uF 25v x 2

I'll take a look this weekend and see what I've got. The office cleanup is still only half complete, so they're buried in a box in here... somewhere.

As others have said, Digikey if you are ordering enough that the shipping isn't more than the order.

I suspect you are out of luck being in Alaska, but most big cities will have an electronic parts store that would have a grab bag of caps - although probably not the low ESR ones. Here in Ottawa we have Active Tech. Things there will cost 2-3x what they would at Digikey, but for the ability to go in and grab something immediately and not have to pay shipping, it can be worth it.

We had a radio shack that was terrible, they stopping being a radio shack and became their own thing. They didn't have the caps I needed and all of their caps we're only rated to 80*c, which IIRC is an indication of it not being a quality or low ESR cap. I usually only ordered from Badcaps.net but will take a look at DigiKey. Shipping to AK isn't as bad as some companies make it out to be, especially if you let them get here a little slower.

Thanks JBI, if you have them and are willing to part with them, let me know what I'd owe you. I too have been going through my office and cleaning it. Had one round of cleaning and it was flawless, had a weekend moving an entire office to their new building and was given 3 computers and a bunch of spare parts, now I need to clean/organize the office again less than 2 weeks later.

Well I was sent over to this local TV repair guy's shop, it's a literal hole in the wall of another business but he had the caps I needed and gave me a lot of information about stuff that was a bit past me at this point. He had the low ESR Nichicon caps I needed for a few bucks. Talking with him seemed to reinforce that the Chinese caps that are out there are most likely junk. Still wish I could put together a useful kit of quality caps for not a heck of a lot of money. I'll give digikey a look as I've got another TV to repair and an older monitor as well.

OK, sounds like you got what you need for this one. I still plan to make progress on the office cleaning, so let me know what you need for the other TV and monitor. IIRC I was ordering mostly Panasonic and United Chemi-Con; so while they're not not Nichicon, they're still respected Japanese brands.

Welch wrote:

Talking with him seemed to reinforce that the Chinese caps that are out there are most likely junk.

I don't know anything about big ass electrolytic caps, but I think the industry largely depends on Japanese suppliers (and Samsung) for ceramics. It seems they still have a lead in technology and/or reliability for passives.

Atradeimos wrote:

Welch wrote:

Talking with him seemed to reinforce that the Chinese caps that are out there are most likely junk.

I don't know anything about big ass electrolytic caps, but I think the industry largely depends on Japanese suppliers (and Samsung) for ceramics. It seems they still have a lead in technology and/or reliability for passives.

I think the Japanese manufacturers are pretty strong in solid polymer electrolytics too, though there are also Chinese/Taiwanese, US, and European vendors in this space as well.