Using japanese capacitors in PSUs and motherboards sound systems

[omar80747326]

Why all PSU and motherboards manufacturers use Japanese power or sound capacitors, may be be quiet does that, but why just Japan makes capacitors?Why not countries like South Korea or the EU countries like Germany although they also applying the international quality standards?

 

[bigpinkdragon286]

This gives the appearance of quality assurance.

While anybody can make both good and bad components, Japanese capacitors have a good reputation therefore reflect well in the minds of many consumers.

 

[Isokolon]

For the same reason people advertise and buy German cars: they stand for quality.

Are there French, Japanese, Korean manufacturers that make decent cars as well? Sure there are. But they don't have that kind of image as the German companies do (or did, thanks Volkswagen).

As for caps, Japanese companies have some sort of tradition manufacturing quality capacitors. I don't even know if there are low quality caps made by Panasonic for example.

There are a bunch of other manufacturers who make decent caps as well, mostly in Taiwan (haven't heard of anyone making them in Europe tbh) and Korea, but these companies haven't made a name for themselves yet as Panasonic, Nippon & co did.

Also from my own dealings with Chinese factories I gotta say... it's a pain. My old company, small company, used a factory in Italy & Taiwan for special bottles. This went pretty well. We then moved to a Chinese factory as they were significantly cheaper. Contract was cancelled before production started as they weren't capable do shape the bottle to our liking. We moved to a different Chinese factory. Made it work, but it was a huge pain.
I'm sure there are plenty Chinese companies that aren't like that, but my experiences with China is, they are able to do anything as long as you tell them exactly in uttermost detail what to do and how to do it. Production is fast, quality mediocre. Again, I don't wanna sound racist and I don't want to generalise, but these were my personal experiences.

 

[Rexper]

"Japanese" capacitors are generally high quality, so will last longer.

Nowadays in PSUs it's more to do with marketing. People have this idea that Japanese caps means the power supply will last longer, which isn't necessarily true
- lesser quality caps can last longer if it has good cooling,
some non-Japanese caps can be similar quality or better than Japanese caps,
not all Japanese caps are made in Japan,
and there are many other components in a power supply that can break before the capacitors.

You can use the Capacitors Manufacturer Tier List as a guide to capacitor quality, but keep in mind the series can make a difference.
And don't use the capacitors alone to judge a power supply.

 

[omar80747326]

But, why PSU or sound caps manufacturers from countries like Germany or so don't try to study how everything goes inside the Japanese factories, then try to make something quite better in quality and lifespan in order to make Japan compete with other competing countries in this industry instead of holding most of the international market share in this industry, at least for another reason: more availability for these products for better prices and also reducing much pressure on the Japanese factories?!

 

[Isokolon]

But, why PSU or sound caps manufacturers from countries like Germany or so don't try to study how everything goes inside the Japanese factories, then try to make something quite better in quality and lifespan in order to make Japan compete with other competing countries in this industry instead of holding most of the international market share in this industry, at least for another reason: more availability for these products for better prices and also reducing much pressure on the Japanese factories?!

why can't American or Indian car companies build cars like German companies?

countries like Germany are more expensive to produce in due to worker conditions.
opening a factory is a major risk since the Japanese comps have years of experience and a name. producing cheaper than them? unlikely.
availability? haven't heard there's a shortage of caps
making caps cheaper all thogether? why would a company want that? it's their profits...

 

[Paperdoc]

This is really marketing "hype" as a result of a disaster over a decade ago. In the early to mid-2000's there was a virtual plague of PSU failures (AND mobo failures for the same reason) traced to a common problem. The units all contained capacitors (for the most part, larger ones, not tiny ones) containing an electrolyte material that degraded over time, causing excess internal heating and eventual rupturing of the capacitor case and failure of the unit. This started to happen a few years after the machine was first put into use and hence millions of machines around the world were affected because so many of those bad capacitor designs were used in so many places. The typical symptom found was the capacitor with a "bulged top", domed up instead of flat, and sometimes an obvious leak. I had a PSU in one machine and a mobo in another machine from that era that failed and had to be replaced.

When the cause was realized, mobo and PSU makers switched rapidly to a different design, and it happens that most of these came from makers in Japan. So to emphasize that their new versions were immune to this widespread problem, they started to advertise that they used only "Japanese Capacitors", and that became a very popular "selling point". You are merely seeing echoes of that time - the problem units are no longer used in anything.

 

[omar80747326]

Let's say instead, Japanese manufacturers can increase no. of production factories in other countries, very similar when Sony built another HQ in the USA when they felt too much pressure on their operations and production factories in Japan?!

 

[Isokolon]

Why would they? Is there a shortage of caps?
Some factories are in fact in China. But building extra factories means increasing volume which in effect means lower prices but higher spendings.
Building another factory costs tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars. Why should a company spend that much only to hurt their own profits?

 

[USAFRet]

Let's say instead, Japanese manufacturers can increase no. of production factories in other countries, very similar when Sony built another HQ in the USA when they felt too much pressure on their operations and production factories in Japan?!

If it makes financial sense to do that, they will.
If it does not make financial sense to do that, they won't.

 

[omar80747326]

Oh man, they earn too much and they can easily compensate losses just in 1-2 years!