Oleg Zabluda's blog
Thursday, March 22, 2012
 
The capacitor plague is the massive numbers of premature failures (sometimes spectacular explosions) of aluminum...
The capacitor plague is the massive numbers of premature failures (sometimes spectacular explosions) of aluminum electrolytic capacitors (rendering your computers, broken) from some Taiwanese manufacturers. Caused by the theft of a secret electrolyte formula gone wrong (see https://plus.google.com/112065430692128821190/posts/BV2BTs43WyU)
by a researcher moving from Japan to Taiwan. He was underselling the pricing of the Japanese capacitors, but the secret formula had apparently been copied incompletely, and it lacked important proprietary ingredients which were essential to the long-term stability of the capacitors.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague#Industrial_espionage_implicated

http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/hardware/leaking-capacitors-muck-up-motherboards/0
http://www.siliconchip.com.au/cms/A_30328/article.html
Of course, I had my share of electrolytic capacitor blow up in my face. It had nothing to do with a stolen formula, but with soldering a capacitor backwards, with reversed polarity. It's such a common problem, that they make special pressure-relief notches on the top, to conveniently direct the explosion straight into your face.

And a week ago, an 11 yr old boy in Denis' radio class, had a capacitor blow into his face. Tears welled up in my eyes - tradition continues. Denis was only burned by the ball of solder he was making to impress a girl (https://plus.google.com/117227760106852840320/posts/SracsyV3bfp)

Now, the real mystery is, what the hell is that white powder that blows up in your face. That mystery is unsolvable, just like the great mystery of what keeps a strapless dress up.

Part of the series:
https://plus.google.com/112065430692128821190/posts/BV2BTs43WyU
https://plus.google.com/112065430692128821190/posts/GXSF13Exgc4
https://plus.google.com/112065430692128821190/posts/4RKZEQaSkww
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague#Industrial_espionage_implicated

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