Free No-Name Electrolytic Caps- Garbage?

[Ginsly]

I was given a small assortment of JWCO electrolytic capacitors - a healthy handful of 25v and 50v.

When I started a couple months ago I was scared into sticking with Nichicon and Panasonic. Seems wise.

Should I not even risk using these in... anything? I'm not sure how often electrolytic caps fail in pedals, considering the low amount of power going through.

 

[Ginsly]

I take the radio silence as a “yes, throw them out”…

 

[Erik S]

I'd use em.

 

[Ginsly]

I'd use em.

Huh! Interesting- this is another topic that seems to be cut right down the middle. Half won’t use anything but the “-cons”, and half use absolutely anything. I have some Nichicons and Panasonic from Tayda and Mouser that’ll last a minute, but it’s good to have these cheapos in a pinch. Sounds like it’s a crap shoot as to how long before they fail, but I’m not sure how big a problem that is…

 

[GizzWizzKing]

Just measure them first. I'm far less worried about them failing than them just having wide tolerances.

 

[KR Sound]

Measure them and they’ll probably be fine as long as they’re 10% or so. Especially if the build is just for you.

 

[Chuck D. Bones]

Measure the leakage at rated voltage. If it's more than a few μA, then recycle them responsibly. There were (are?) a lot of crap aluminum electrolytics manufactured in China. I had a pedal that failed to work because of leaky aluminum caps that had bought from a US surplus supplier. when I reported the problem, they balked at first but then issued a refund.

 

[jwin615]

I have a good load of suspect electros and some greenies from when I got back into it. I keep them as "just Incase" parts. Nothing wrong with the greenies, they're just marginally mixed up and sometimes too big(and a pain to read at times).
The cheapo lytics don't have great ESR readings but are in tollerence spec, so far, and could do in a pinch. I've used a couple in the last year ish and always marked them with a sharpie X on top so if I come back to a build with an issue, it yells.at me when i open the enclosure.