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

[Duane Calvin]

Thanks for the reminder, Ron.  I notice the Wiki article is not complete.
It leaves out the news story that came out a while after the plague began
that told of how someone had infiltrated the premiere electrolytic maker in
Taiwan and stole the recipe for the "secret sauce" inside.  Problem was, the
company had hid away the real recipe, and had left a phony copy where it
could be stolen in order to foil competitors.  And, sadly, that is how we
have been cursed with the bad capacitors for lo these many years!  Here's
one of the online references with a slightly different twist, but it's
close:
  http://www.pctools.com/security-news/faulty-capacitors/ 

And that's our intrigue for a Friday morning, the 13th!

	73, Duane

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


-----Original Message-----
From: TenTec [mailto:tentec-bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf Of Ron Castro
Sent: Thursday, November 12, 2015 11:10 PM
To: 'Discussion of Ten-Tec Equipment'
Subject: Re: [TenTec] Bad Capacitors (WAS: Orion II master resetting each
turn on)

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 



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