How much damage have I done to my VHF?

[CreakyDecks]

If the radio is getting on a bit it won't hurt to replace electrolytic capacitors anyway. They only have an MTBF of about 50,000 hours which is less than six years continual use (a bit worrying when I drive a 15 year old car that is full of them!)

 

[lw395]

If the radio is getting on a bit it won't hurt to replace electrolytic capacitors anyway. They only have an MTBF of about 50,000 hours which is less than six years continual use (a bit worrying when I drive a 15 year old car that is full of them!)

Tends to vary with voltage across them and temperature, which is why in military designs they would be 'derated' to half their nominal voltage.

I suspect there is a toss up between new ones being more reliable and the unreliability of anything that's been re-worked?

 

[CreakyDecks]

I remember a few years ago, when hard drives were failing prematurely at work, the finger of blame being pointed towards some very dodgy goings on in the capacitor industry. "Allegedly", as they say on Not the Nine O'clock News, Japanese manufacturers had allowed an employee to steal an incorrect formula for an electrolyte that he then sold to Taiwanese manufacturers that were at the time undercutting the Japanese.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague
Obviously because of the massive losses suffered by third parties nobody is ever likely to admit whether these rumours were true, any more than similar ones about the Russian Konkordski having design flaws deliberately put into stolen Concorde blueprints.