Ive always wondered why the capacitors in Sega Game Gears break so easly
It makes me worried for other handhelds with capacitors in them
Do they break easly too?
>>3188287
Capacitors degrade at a fairly predictable rate. The reason the Game Gear degrades more quickly when compared to something like, say the gameboy, is because the color screen requires higher voltages, which when stored in the capacitor degrade the chemical composition more quickly. This leads to them leaking, which erodes the contacts.
tl;dr: no, game gear capacitors degrade more quickly then other handhelds of the era.
>>3188302
There's also the fact that the company Sega bought capacitors from had production problems, so it wasn't unusual to get a Game Gear where the capacitors degrade at a rapidly accelerated rate.
>>3188287
during the 90's Chinese companies were using cheap ass capacitors in electronics that weren't up to snuff. there was a class action lawsuit about it. then after that class action lawsuit started up it was revealed all sorts of other shit the Chinese cut corners on started coming out.
>>3190189
here's a link and while it says 2002 they believe it was happening as far back as the early 90's
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague#History
>>3188287
Sega was notoriously cheap and bought Chink capacitors.
>>3188302
>high voltage degrades capacitors quicker
Caps are rated for different voltage values you know. Unless Sega is somehow so retarded they put an under specced part in their design, then yes apply higher voltage than it's max rating will damage them.
The caps degrade quicker because they cheaped out on the electrolytics and bought from a hella shitty vendor.
>>3188287
All shitty capacitors will go bad.
Well made ones can last quite some time.
Some capacitors are worse than others and cap failure is the number one cause of electronic breakdown so it's nice to learn which ones aren't great and also generally how to "recap" or to find a good person who does it.
Sega had the shittiest capacitors ever in the early 90s. Sega CDs have them too and PC Engines.
Capacitors are easy to replace
>>3190467
They sometimes damage the board or nearby components, and sometimes they are very very tiny making removal and replacement difficult
>>3190476
Desoldering is literally the easiest skill to become proficient in.
