Capacitor shortage?

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Wanted some low ESR caps, and RS, CPC and Rapid were all out of stock. Is there a production problem?

[Andrew Gabriel]

I bought several from CPC a couple of months ago.

What has certainly happened is that everyone has cut back on their stock holding over the last few years, so a tiny supply feed glitch is much more likely to hit everyone.

[Martin Brown]

I don't think so - delivery problem maybe? Just bad luck but I see what you mean today. Many on back order.

Some of the Nichicons with ESR 0.01R are in stock. I wish there was a button for only show me items "in stock now".

I had some from RS not long since.

[Andrew Gabriel]

The other thing is that so much fewer appliances are manufactured here - you pretty much can't do it anymore for tax reasons. (You have to pay duty on imported components, but not if they're already assembled into a product.) Therefore, there's probably much less stock held here for manufacturing, and that's where the bulk of the component stock will have been used years back.

[The Other Mike]

What spec?

[whisky-dave]

Maybe no one wants to risk buying a load of possibly 'fake' capacitors from china, that's what happene da few years ago showing up in failed mother boards and PSUs . Although I've been ordering a few hundred for student projects and I assume other teaching establishments have too, not sure that's enough for a shortage, but maybe they are made in the smae places as the hard drives.

[geoff]

In message , Mike Tomlinson writes

I've been experiencing it on a regular basis from RS for the past few years

[Frank Erskine]

Are condensers still manufactured in Britain, or are they all made in Japan or China?

TCC Dubilier Hunts (aka wire-ended short circuits!) Plessey Formo-denser STC

...are all British makes that spring to mind.

[tony sayer]

I remember working at a company called Audiolab back in around the late

80's making upmarket audio hi-fi equipment and the designer there Derek Scotland was always going on about getting -anything- sourced from the UK components, metalwork, plastic finishing, transformers, PCB's that had some holes drilled and tracks in place etc etc..

But they used a British made cap for the HF compensation circuits in their power amps. They I believe were made in Wales somewhere and you could take them apart unwind them and find that the connecting leads weren't welded onto the ally foil.

Caused no end of warranty returns usually after the power output transistors self destructed.

Was quite a revelation working in that industry at the time i.e. consumer goods after coming form a pro audio Broadcast environment where quality was paramount, and price wasn't a problem..

I could soon see why after a while sod all came from the UK 'tho the products were built here the components weren't. He once wanted a particular spec power transistor. Brit makers wanted around 8 quid each for them and were very snotty about dealing with a domestic manufacturer whereas Sanken in Japan said yes, they'll be 1.8123456 pounds each, how many you take, 10,000 pieces a month minimum;?..

The root cause was in the educational establishment according to Dr Scotland all to do with the best brains being encouraged to do Medicine, accountancy and Law, NOT engineering. Citing as usual the cosmetic finishes on their control knobs, and having to go to Bayer in Germany for them, where plastics engineering was considered a worthwhile well paid and well socially regarded job.

Where all the UK could do was mould children's piss pots;!.

I hope thats changed nowadays;!...

[Andrew Gabriel]

I do it for things I own (and immediate family). Recently did two 5V 2A SMPSU wall warts, 7 years old. I don't offer it as a service, as it would never be worth it time-wise. Even on minimum wage for labour alone, it would be cheaper to buy new ones. The time consuming bit was initial diagnosis, and opening the case non-destructively, and reclosing it afterwards. It was ultrasonic welded originally. The component replacement was the easy bit.

[Jules Richardson]

Drivel's buying them all up and trying to make hybrid vehicles with them. You'll find similar stock problems if you try and buy a Russian vane engine.

[Andy Wade]

On 22/03/2012 08:20, tony sayer wrote: [...]

MFD Capacitors, Wrexham, or LCR Components, Ebbw Vale, are both still in business, as are BHC Aerovox in Weymouth and Syfer in Norwich (the last remnant of Erie, I think):

yes Frank, we do still make condensers in the UK. [C|H]unts are long gone though (good riddance) as are TCC (AFAIK) and many others (remember Pye Capacitors, Tony?).

[Mike Tomlinson]

En el artículo , tony sayer escribió:

Hell yeah. I hate throwing good working hardware out for the sake of a handful of caps and a few minutes' soldering. Plus you get the satisfaction that comes from fixing something.

It can be tricky as one or both pins of the cap can be soldered to a power plane which conducts heat away from the iron and prevents the solder melting totally, so the sucker fails to clear the hole. I use two irons - a 25W one for 'normal' pads and a 50W one for those on a power plane.

On a related topic, I had to order a few caps in today to repair the power supply for a Topfield PVR. All were in stock from RS.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Strange, isn't it? Spent the best part of an afternoon fixing a pal's Tesco special DAB portable which was humming and buzzing like a good un - even with the volume on zero. Still hummed badly on standby.

If I were charging the going rate it would be cheaper to just throw it away...

[geoff]

In message , tony sayer writes

>>I find my Pace based one indispensable. It's one of those things you

[David Paste]

Go on, put me out of my misery - how DID you do it?!

[Andrew Gabriel]

Opened it carefully with a stanley knife, with the blade only poking out the handle a millimetre or two, so it couldn't go far into the casing (or me, if I slipped).

Had to find a solvent which dissolved it. Funny thing was I had two of them. One dissolved nicely with the solvent in superglue. Other one looked the same, but the superglue solvent wouldn't touch it, so it obviously wasn't. It's still got tie-wraps around it.

[Mike Tomlinson]

En el artículo , Andrew Gabriel escribió:

My method is to place the Stanley knife blade on the seam and hit it with a hammer. Repeat at all 4 corners and the two halves pop apart easily and cleanly. Wear goggles.

Superglue for reassembly.

[The Other Mike]

Fein Multimaster with a fine toothed flat ended blade.

Glued back together with hot melt glue

[David Paste]

Ah, thanks! I'll try that one day. I tend to use a hacksaw blade for that task (very infrequent task...) but it does remove a lot of plastic and therefore the repair is never invisible.

Maybe you should go a bit Jake Von Slatt on it and make some Victorian looking brass paper-weight-come-PSU?!