Wasted 4 hours and $45 on a bad capacitor kit from Amazon

I bought this big multi-pack of electrolytic caps for $45 thinking I was getting a deal. Turns out the voltage ratings were all mislabeled on like half of them. Put one in a power supply board for a customer's monitor and it popped after 10 minutes of testing. Now I'm out the money plus the cost of the original board I damaged. Anyone else swear by a specific seller or distributor for caps that actually match their labels?

3 comments

3 Comments

sean_torres7113d agoTop Commenter

Did you check Mouser or Digikey yet?

grace_gonzalez4613d ago

Did you check the batch numbers before you installed them? Honestly, cheap multi-packs are always a gamble.

grantmartinez13d ago

Yeah "batch numbers" is probably not the issue here. That Amazon stuff is all cheap garbage from the same few factories in China no matter what batch. What nobody seems to be talking about is that even brand name caps from places like Mouser can be fakes if you're not careful. I had a buddy who ordered "Nichicon" from a third party seller once and they were clearly just re-labeled cheapos with the wrong specs. The real trick is to always check the distributor's authorized list on the manufacturer's website before you buy. That way you know you're getting stuff from a legit supply chain not some random reseller scraping leftovers.