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To: Uncledave
So long as the Chinese don't steal then screw up this recipe, and we get even more bad caps (with vent goo) in our stuff.
18 posted on 11/05/2007 12:40:10 PM PST by polymuser (There is one war and one enemy.)
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To: polymuser
So long as the Chinese don't steal then screw up this recipe, and we get even more bad caps (with vent goo) in our stuff.

Funny you should mention it.

Several years ago, a Taiwanese PC motherboard company experienced widespread failures of their boards out in the field.

It turns out that they had electrolytic capactors with 'youthful' mortality problems. Just enough to pass factory final test, and get into the hands of users and work for a while before going kaputt.

The capacitors were bought from a component manufacturer who offered a really low price. Too low. A young engineer, a capacitor whiz, had just come to that company from a competitor. He had brought with him the special formula for the electrolytic mixture--sort of like "Jack's Secret Sauce."

Problem was, he didn't have the full formula. He didn't know about an additional component of the chemical mixture that was necessary to keep the caps from self-destructing.

IIRC, it cost one or two companies their existence.

26 posted on 11/05/2007 1:35:41 PM PST by Erasmus (My simplifying explanation had the disconcerting side effect of making the subject incomprehensible.)
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