Has anyone used ARS 500v electrolytic caps?

[J M Fahey]

I agree into that rebranding is confusing at least, although it reflects modern market/manufacturing realities.
Trademarks are exactly that, a way to identify a product among other similar ones.
In the old days, for any type (say, electrolytic capacitors or anything else) there were many manufacturers making similar but still different products, probably using different technologies or perhaps paying more or less attention to quality control, etc.
Or some might be trying to minimize size, others cost, etc.
Fact is, for a similarly specd component there might exist quite different versions, and trademark/brand was a useful way to identify that.
Today (and probably since the last 10 years or more), there has been a scary manufacturing concentration, where a couple giant (investment?) companies have been buying *everybody* into huge conglomerates which in practice, manufacture "everything".
Consider Vishay as an example:

Vishay's acquisitions include such top names as Siliconix, Telefunken, the infrared components business of Infineon, General Semiconductor, Dale, Draloric, Sprague, Vitramon, and BCcomponents (former passive components businesses of Philips Electronics and Beyschlag). Subsequent acquisitions include selected discrete semiconductor and module product lines from International Rectifier® and a tantalum capacitor product line from KEMET.

Add to this:

Vishay Aztronic
Vishay BCcomponents
Vishay Beyschlag
Vishay Cera-Mite
Vishay Dale
Vishay Dale Thin Film
Vishay Draloric
Vishay Electro-Films
Vishay ESTA
Vishay Roederstein
Vishay Semiconductors
Vishay Sfernice
Vishay Siliconix
Vishay Spectrol
Vishay Sprague
Vishay Techno
Vishay Vitramon

So how do you make customers buy *your* products when everybody is selling exactly the same? (actually made by one of the giants)
You create a fancy brand and try to convince them that these are better than those.
Tubes, on the contrary, are still being made by different companies, and show great variation; not only between different factories but even within different batches , so in this case testing and rebranding still means something.
just my 2 cents

[jmaf]

You are absolutely correct IMO - brands are worth what they're worth in large part because they tell us what to expect from that brand.

AFAIK the Illinois caps used to be good, then they started making them in Asia and they are not well seen today. One example of a brand not telling us what the brand used to tell us.

New Sensor is making most of the Russian tubes in Saratov, with the exception of the St. Petersburg SED. SED is no longer Svetlana...so what does the Svetlana brand tell us today? Not much... I opened a box of Svetlana 6L6GC and installed 2 on a Bassman...they immediately arc'ed....

Are there many more makers out there except the 2 or 3 Chinese brands? The JJ's from Servia, what else...Groove Tubes I think is making some of their own. Sometimes it gives me a cold belly to think that tubes are made in very few places and they may as well disappear sometime when the market dictates they are no longer viable. Curiously, the JJ/Tesla brand never existed but folks attached Tesla to JJ to tell us what to expect from JJ....as if saying "JJ didn't pop out of nowhere, they use Tesla machines and materials".

So rebranding caps without any tests or any value added, just for the sake of branding, doesn't look good in my opinion. I think that sort of trick works with young musicians who don't know that a TS-808 is one cap and one resistor different from a TS-9 and gladly pay 200 bucks more for a 808....but with technicians, re-branding capacitors looks kinda dumb, they should know a technical forum like this would quickly ID the real maker of the caps....

[J M Fahey]

..but with technicians, re-branding capacitors looks kinda dumb, they should know a technical forum like this would quickly ID the real maker of the caps....

Agree, but would like to say it in another words.
If you read posts here, it soon becomes clear that technicians (such as Enzo, JRFrondelli and most others) care about *specs*, as in "47uFx450V cap" , period.
While some musicians who build/mod/repair amps care more about brand/colour/age/axial_vs_radial .
Some of them worry about: "the original (1947) schematic called for 8uF caps and all I can get are 10uF caps, help !!" or in the Randall post: "where can I find Ohmite ceramic ballast resistors? Nobody sells them today and factory minimum order is 500 pieces"
Well, I respect that, everybody has his own set of priorities.

[Ronsonic]

I think it depends on what you consider to be proprietary info. Groove Tubes will tell you "this is selected from chinese tubes, these are selected from sovtek tubes", etc, even when relabeling.... I can't quite grasp the logic behind relabeling caps besides it being what was mentioned earlier, pure branding....which to me seems a bit unethical, if not dishonest. Unless I'm missing something...

What is dishonest about a company saying "these are our parts, we stand behind them. Proprietary, is where and how I source my parts that I spec for sale to my customers under my brand name." If the cap fails you call ARS, not some OEM where ever the hell it is. If the cap is good you call ARS and buy more. Those are ARS parts and anything behind the counter is their business and what ever they do or don't tell you about it is their decision.

I simply cannot imagine what you see as dishonest about that. It isn't like they're hiding their return address, it's printed on the label. They are taking responsibility for the product, not passing it on to someone else.

Groove Tubes has a fairly peculiar business model anyway. Don't really see them as an exemplar of electronic component sales.

[Ronsonic]

New Sensor is making most of the Russian tubes in Saratov, with the exception of the St. Petersburg SED. SED is no longer Svetlana...so what does the Svetlana brand tell us today? Not much... I opened a box of Svetlana 6L6GC and installed 2 on a Bassman...they immediately arc'ed....

Svetlana Electronic Devices is still who they were and they still make high quality tubes with their Cyrillic logo the =C= thing. The US rights to the trade name "Svetlana" the packaging design and logo were all sold when the US distributor failed a few years ago. New Sensor bought all that and has been producing tubes under that brand name for sale in the USA. The reason "Svetlana" doesn't mean anything to you as a brand is because it is not at all the same company. Companies do get bought and sold. Does it suck that you need to stay relatively current, sure. Deal.

Are there many more makers out there except the 2 or 3 Chinese brands? The JJ's from Servia, what else...Groove Tubes I think is making some of their own. Sometimes it gives me a cold belly to think that tubes are made in very few places and they may as well disappear sometime when the market dictates they are no longer viable. Curiously, the JJ/Tesla brand never existed but folks attached Tesla to JJ to tell us what to expect from JJ....as if saying "JJ didn't pop out of nowhere, they use Tesla machines and materials".

You really need to dig into recent tube history. Tube quality and availability right now is vastly better than it has been any time since 1988 when all the US plants shut down. We're finally getting tubes with datasheets and real spec's again and not weird Russian sorta-likes with repinned bases. Your description of JJ and its relationship to Tesla is not quite historically accurate either, but... nevermind. They are actually good quality tubes and my experience with them is actually better than a lot of the later Tesla products.

So rebranding caps without any tests or any value added, just for the sake of branding, doesn't look good in my opinion.

Please explain how it is you know what ARS does and doesn't spec or test. Psychic powers? If you don't trust them, fine, don't trust them. Just don't accuse someone of dishonesty on the basis of ... what? You don't like that they print their name on the case? Since when is that a sign of shady dealing?

Yeah, crooks always put their readily identifiable, easily located company name on their substandard crap. I'm thinking you've got this whole thing pretty much backward.

[dai h.]

maybe they aren't a rebrand but a custom order from a manf. who doesn't carry them in their normal line. If they are a rebrand, where is the original? They don't look like F&T(Germany--shorter body) or Unicon (I think Taiwan--angled lugs).

(after some googling...) I think I've found the manf. Check this out:

¨·è¢öÅŲò¥³¥ó¥Ç¥ó¥µ¡¼500V/50uFX£²¡Ê¶â¥á¥Ã¥*¡Ë¶â¶ñÉÕ - Yahoo!¥ª¡¼¥¯¥·¥ç¥ó

A search for "TMC (cap manf.)" brings up:

Shanghai Tianhe Capacitor Co., Ltd. was established in 1946. It is the professional factory of research & development as well as produces the electrolytic capacitors.

The company registered at the developing region Cao He Jing, with workhouse of 3000 square meter. It has two brand: "Tianhe" and "TMC".

Appear to be "Type CDZ"

http://www.made-in-china.com/showroo...tors-CDZ-.html

http://image.made-in-china.com/2f0j0...itors-CDZ-.jpg

China Capacitor, Big Capacitor Manufacturer - Shanghai Tianhe Capacitor Co., Ltd.

[J M Fahey]

Now that you mention it, I wouldn't call them "rebrands" simply because there may not exist an "original" brand to begin with.
After all, Shanghai Tianhe is an OEM manufacturer, which works on custom orders.
From what you found out, ARS might even not have bought them straight from the factory, but from some middle guy who offers the unbranded generic product (maybe on AliBaba, Made in China, etc.) and adds up orders (say, 5000U$ each) until he reaches the OEM minimum $25000 order, and then has them made all at once.
What label appears on them , is a minor problem.
My personal experience:
in the early 90's, I was approached by the owner of an important Music shop in Buenos Aires.
He was trying to find partners to reach the U$S100000 minimum order (a big sum for us way back then) for a Korean guitar manufacturer.
Minimum individual capital investment : U$S5000 ; $10k or 15k up preferred.
There were only two product prices: U$S100 and U$S150 FOB.
The first would buy any combination of Strats, Teles, LP, JB and similar lookalike guitars "regular stuff", the second would buy 5 and 6 string basses, "Steve Vai" pink 7 string guitars, active basses, in sum: "expensive" stuff.
Those instruments could be sold for a street price from U$280 to U$1500 depending on desirability, as expressed by musicians.
Remember *any* of them cost either 100 or 150U$, period.
What relation has this with what we are discussing?: on the phone book sized color catalog (no Web pages way back then) the order page stated (it had half a dozen tear-out order forms): "These instruments can be supplied with "any inscription" the customer wishes"
"It's the customer responsability to ensure he can use them in his Country"
When I asked "can you print, say, the letters G_i_b_s_o_n or F_e_n_d_e_r in a typeface I'll supply?" they said: "Sure, why not? Remember it's 500 of each minimum"
Well, *that* would have been dishonest, they weren't worried about it.
I didn't get into that business, it would have been nice to have 500 "Fahey" branded instruments to sell.
Oh well.
It's never too late, I may check what the current commercial requirements are.

[dai h.]

Makes sense. Sounds like the current low cost condenser microphone situation (many similar products under different brands).

re: the ARS/TMC, etc. caps, I wonder what the specs are (besides the 85deg.C rating). I can understand how a seller would want to downplay the "made in China" manufacture, but for example for the F&T and Unicon, datasheets are avail., plus the F&T has clear markings on the cap itself for country of manf., tolerance, temp. rating, and some IEC standard number (60 384-4). An old F&T datasheet gives a 4000 hour rating but not sure at what temp. (gives three temp. ratings). The Unicon is 1000 hours/85 deg. C.

[tedmich]

You realize, of course, that any cap can be "rated" at 50 or even 100v higher than its original design as long as a much shorter lifespan is acceptable, and since bargain basement caps (or hell Sprague Atoms!) never even try to claim an actual MTBF (or ESR numbers) the elevated price and increased sales are all gravy. Those Ruby/Weber/Generic axials may say "600v" on them but its only true for <1000h....at <25C...with 1/5 a real caps ripple current.

[Steve Conner]

Well, I exploded a 250V electrolytic with 330V the other day. It lasted about 15 minutes, I don't know how that compares to what the equation would predict. Maybe I should have formed it more carefully: I thought it was a 450V one and applied full voltage straight away.

This is why resellers should be upfront about what they're rebranding: we're going to find out anyway. Ronsonic, are you pissed because you sell your own branded op-amps?

F&T claim their caps last longer because they stuff in extra electrolyte to prevent them drying out. They certainly feel heavier than similar-sized caps from other makers.

[tedmich]

Steve I had forgotten we have a regular "destructive tester" in our midst! (I still remember your class D meltdown)

and since you have a good safety record (being undead) and access to HV maybe you could accept a couple CDE LX381s and test them at +50 and +100v to see how much their 10,000h lifespan is decreased?

Science demands it!

Probably should do n=3 and have a web cam so we know when your flat burned down...

[dai h.]

I just looked over a Nippon Chemi-con datasheet and I couldn't find any mention where it's acceptable, recommended, etc. to use them 50 or 100V beyond ratings. Mainly (the info re: increasing lifespan) is about lowering temperature. The only place where applying greater than rated voltage is after the alu foil is chemically etched (to form an oxide film).

Anyway, call me chicken but sounds too scary for me.

[jmaf]

Unfortunately the counterfeit guitar market seems to be booming.

A friend of mine bought a "Japanese Strat"....then he asked me to install new pickups for him. I took out the pickguard and immediately suspected it was a counterfeit, I thought "if Fender is making this quality material abroad, they won't last another decade". I called him and let him know that he better take it back and not mess with the pickups. It turns out the serial nr. didn't match any real number and I sent several experts photos of the guitar and they all confirmed it as a counterfeit.... He took it back to the store and the folks there said they were just as surprised as him and refunded his cash.

That "Japanese Strat" was probably the fruit of some questionable business similar to what you described.

[jmaf]

Ronsonic, I think I have this whole thing backward indeed, because I don't understand your rant. And I don't know what is the point you're trying to make. I offered my opinion, that rebranding just for the sake of rebranding isn't honest IMHO.

Now, I don't know who or what ARS is, I've never heard of it and I didn't say a word about ARS, I asked if there was a technical reason to rebrand, such as matching or quality control. I said IF they don't add any value to caps, then just rebranding for the sake of it would be unethical in my opinion.....

I was the only authorized reseller for Groove Tubes in Brazil until a while back. My imports legislation made it impossible for me to work with them as a small business. I know first hand how ethical and professional GT is and since I am no longer working with them there is no conflict of interest in me telling you that. I don't know what you call peculiar in their business, GT is a great company IMO and their rebranding means a lot of value-added, it's not just GT stamped on tubes for the sake of branding.

[kg]

i just want someone to step up and remake the kt90 of late 90s/early 00s vintage. i need a bunch of those.