-----Original Message-----

From: russell(羅素) 

Sent: Monday, March 07, 2005 8:44 AM

To: 'Jay Brusse'

Cc: frank(陳政文)

Subject: RE: strange capacitor





Jay,



I went this message twice to you and recieved "This Internet Domain Blocked" messages.



The English of most of the engineers I teach is better than my Chinese, and I dont know if your computer can read the Chinese characters, but I did a rough translation of the email as we received it. Tatung is one of our customers for PCB's.



I will enquire further through our QA to Mr Lee.



Larry Russell



-----Original Message-----

From: 李旻展 [mailto:[log in to unmask]]

Sent: Thursday, February 24, 2005 3:08 PM

To: Undisclosed-Recipient:;

Subject: 連電容都有黑心貨

(Subject: "Black heart" or bad capcitors)





金夭壽喔 

(Burns out)





看來工程師們 大家要多小心一點了

(It seems engineers need to watch out)

以免背黑鍋

(Unless you are blamed unfairly)

自己的IC/電路/元件選取/系統設計 都沒問題

(IC's/circuit/component selection/system design all no problem)

卻毀在黑心電容

(but ruined by a bad capacitor)

 



-----Original Message-----

From: Jay Brusse [mailto:[log in to unmask]]

Sent: Monday, March 07, 2005 8:40 AM

To: russell(ù¯À)

Subject: strange capacitor





Larry,



Can you provide a point of contact who can discuss how they came to discover

this "strange capacitor"?  It's an interesting observation and from your

posting to TechNET, the image has found its way through a variety of NASA parts

engineering mail lists (for which I am also a recipient).



Perhaps totally UNRELATED--A few years ago there was a major problem associated

with wet aluminum electrolytic capacitors (similar to those shown in strange

capacitor image).  I don't recall the entire story, but there were reportedly a

number of Taiwanese (maybe some Japanese too) capacitor manufacaturers who were

sold a substandard batch of electrolyte used in the construction of the

capacitor.  To make a long story short -- bad electrolyte produces bad

capacitor which can and does fail catastrophically.  Stories have it that 1000s

of PCs and other commercial equipment were impacted by early failures.  What I

found of interest is that the capacitor on the "inside" of your strange cap is

labeled as RUBYCON.  The story from a few years ago said that a former employee

of RUBYCON left for employment in China where he introduced a proprietary

RUBYCON electrolyte for his new employer's product.  Story says, his staff

mates stole this recipe (but copied it incorrectly) and began to sell the

faulty electrolyte to assorted Taiwanese companies.



It would be "intriguing" if somehow the strange capacitor you saw was linked to

this past event in some strange way...  Here is one of MANY articles that have

been written about the past problem:

http://www.ttiinc.com/object/ME_Zobgi20021014.html



Cheers,



Jay





Date:    Sat, 5 Mar 2005 18:09:15 +0800

From:    Larry Russell <[log in to unmask]>

Subject: Re: Strange Capacitor



Bill,=20



We don't know the source, but it was photo was taken in Shang Hai and =

sent to us from Tatung.



Larry Russell







-- 

Jay Brusse

QSS Group, Inc at NASA Goddard

301-286-2019