62vauxhall
Addicted Member
No particular reason for this post. Just an observation or opinion.
Last month I replaced all small electrolytic capacitors in a circa 1973 Akai cassette deck. There were over 30. I tend to favor Digikey when purchasing such things but I confess I was soon dismayed after adding Nichicon and/or Panasonics to my cart. My tendency with buying small parts is ordering in lots of 10 so as to have a supply at hand if a future need arises.
Browsing Digikey’s assortment, I noticed there were Wurth brand capacitors in all the values I needed so I deleted the Nichicons and Panasonics and added Wurth’s instead. That wound up saving about 40%.
On the surface, it did not seem that going the cheaper route was settling for an inferior product. The Wurth examples I chose were either 2,000 or 4,000 hour service life and all rated at 105 degree temperature.
While removing old capacitors from the PC board, I saw that the bottom rubber plugs of some were distended. That made me think that a re-cap in this case was a worthwhile thing to do.
My choosing Wurth capacitors was prompted by being on a fixed income and reluctance to sink more money than necessary into a 50 year old cassette deck. The total of that Digikey order was around $32 CAD shipping included.
I was satisfied enough that I chose to perform a similar chore to an Akai 8 track recorder of similar vintage. I confined my choice to Wurth brand replacement capacitors except for 4 yellow jacketed originals which I believe means low loss or low leakage. For those I ordered Nichicon UKL series.
Although the total parts count was about the same, this order’s total was higher at $52 CAD. I guess some values are larger for the 8 track deck than for the cassette deck.
Since I have a few old pieces of gear kicking around that could likely use a refresh and retirement allows some time to do that, I see no reason to pay more than necessary for parts. I was not familiar with the name Wurth but what online reading I’ve done about that brand shows that it has some longstanding credibility.
Last month I replaced all small electrolytic capacitors in a circa 1973 Akai cassette deck. There were over 30. I tend to favor Digikey when purchasing such things but I confess I was soon dismayed after adding Nichicon and/or Panasonics to my cart. My tendency with buying small parts is ordering in lots of 10 so as to have a supply at hand if a future need arises.
Browsing Digikey’s assortment, I noticed there were Wurth brand capacitors in all the values I needed so I deleted the Nichicons and Panasonics and added Wurth’s instead. That wound up saving about 40%.
On the surface, it did not seem that going the cheaper route was settling for an inferior product. The Wurth examples I chose were either 2,000 or 4,000 hour service life and all rated at 105 degree temperature.
While removing old capacitors from the PC board, I saw that the bottom rubber plugs of some were distended. That made me think that a re-cap in this case was a worthwhile thing to do.
My choosing Wurth capacitors was prompted by being on a fixed income and reluctance to sink more money than necessary into a 50 year old cassette deck. The total of that Digikey order was around $32 CAD shipping included.
I was satisfied enough that I chose to perform a similar chore to an Akai 8 track recorder of similar vintage. I confined my choice to Wurth brand replacement capacitors except for 4 yellow jacketed originals which I believe means low loss or low leakage. For those I ordered Nichicon UKL series.
Although the total parts count was about the same, this order’s total was higher at $52 CAD. I guess some values are larger for the 8 track deck than for the cassette deck.
Since I have a few old pieces of gear kicking around that could likely use a refresh and retirement allows some time to do that, I see no reason to pay more than necessary for parts. I was not familiar with the name Wurth but what online reading I’ve done about that brand shows that it has some longstanding credibility.
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