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Old 9th May 2011, 6:30 pm   #3
Leon Crampin
Octode
 
Join Date: Nov 2005
Location: Surrey, UK.
Posts: 1,869
Default Re: Beware!

I made a component evaluation of these capacitors for a former employer about 30 years ago.

One of our favourite tests was to thermally cycle components with their leads under axial stress for several hundred cycles - sometimes with added humidity. My findings at that time with Rifa capacitors were that they had used a hard epoxy encapsulent which was not thermally matched to the capacitor element, thus stressing the element and its connections. Failure of the encapsulent under these conditions allowed moisture into the unit, usually resulting in catastrophic failure.

I was also unhappy about the flame retardancy properties of their chosen encapsulent and had a few bonfires during my bunsen burner tests.

We found a lot of absolute junk by testing in this way - it took time and money but enhanced our product reliability. If only other UK electronics producers were as discerning (Quad please note), they might have produced goods which were fit for purpose.

At that time, only Philips and the Japanese had any notion of capacitor construction for reliable operation.

Leon.
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