Cheapo (TEAPO) caps!!

Just spent the best part of an hour or so off-line due to these pieces of trash!

I have a Belkin G+MIMO wireless modem/router, which serves the household for our internet needs. In the last few months, it has needed more frequent resets than have been normally required in the past.

This evening revealed why:
The offending items...

Yeah - those seem to be among the "bad caps" out there - according to a quick google search. Care to elaborate how you narrowed it down to those caps?

Care to elaborate how you narrowed it down to those caps?

Click to expand...

The tops are more bulged out than normal.

Could be worse. This companys line of products tells you what they think of you right in their first four letters of their name!

**broken link removed**

cr0sh said:

Care to elaborate how you narrowed it down to those caps?

Click to expand...

TCM got it.....after popping open the case, used the good old Mk1 eyeball!
The top of the black one ( 470uf 10V, found on the power supply side near the input jack) has bulged as far as it actually split and oozed.
The green one ( 220uf 16V, found near the ADSL input jack) has just bulged.

I replaced them with identical value caps which had been scavenged from who knows where, simply because they were close at hand and I wasn't 100% sure they were the sole problem. It worked and is still working (it is on 24/7) but if it happens again I will know what to replace with new ones first.

You would think Belkin would use better quality parts. I have a few graphics cards laying here with caps that look the same. Junk, just plain cheap junk!

Ron

Bad caps are in everything, last I checked! Took apart a CD drive yesterday that had some Capxons in it - weren't popped yet, but they looked like they wanted to! I've fixed ~3 monitors with bad caps on the PSU, a video card, and a DTV converter...

I think it's a win-win for the companies, because they can sell their crap for less (cheaper caps), plus their stuff breaks more often, so people come back to buy more!