[TenTec] Bad Capacitors (WAS: Orion II master resetting each turn on)

[Ron Castro]

The bad capacitors were produced from around 1999 to 2003, but the effects lasted for several years afterward.  Dell got burned for some $420 Million, also Apple, HP, Intel, IBM and others got hit for huge sums.  Here's the sad story from Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague

At the end is the speculation about the stolen formula, which is intriguing to say the least!  This hit Ten Tec as well, and even if you sent your radio back to them, they replaced the caps with ones from the same bad batch before all of this was known.

          Ron Castro
           N6IE
    www.N6IE.com

Member:
                  ARRL
     Redwood Empire DX Assn.
 Northern California Contest Club
Northern California DX Foundation
  Society of Broadcast Engineers



-----Original Message-----
From: TenTec [mailto:tentec-bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf Of Duane Calvin
Sent: November 12, 2015 8:33 PM
To: 'Discussion of Ten-Tec Equipment'
Subject: Re: [TenTec] Orion II master resetting each turn on

For some period of time a few years back, EVERYONE had problems with electrolytics due to a stolen fake formula for the electrolytic compound in the caps.  Sure caused a lot of problems.  I had to repair my Samsung big-screen TV by replacing electrolytics on the power supply board, for example.  I used to know the years this occurred, but no room in my memory for that any more!

	73, Duane

Duane Calvin, AC5AA
Austin, Texas
ac5aa at ac5aa.com