Capacitor Kit

I bought this item right at the beginning of my AliExpress days, but I still decided to share my thoughts on this kit. It’s a rather specialized product, but it might come in handy for someone.

Since I work as an electronics engineer and my hobbies are in the same field, as soon as I discovered AliExpress I started looking around to see what interesting things I could buy. It wasn’t that I particularly needed this item or that it wasn’t available here. I just took a look, worked out that it was cheaper than buying locally, and since these are consumables anyway, decided to get some and try them out.

Another reason I decided to write this review is that I haven’t seen any other opinions on this kit, even though kits like this are quite popular on AliExpress.
It was the lowest price available when I bought it.

This is a kit of capacitors for repairing various electronic devices, power supplies, motherboards (although I wouldn’t use them for that, as I’ll explain below), satellite receivers, and so on.


The kit contains 12 commonly used capacitor values:

6.3 V — 1000 µF, 1500 µF, 2200 µF, 3300 µF
10 V — 1000 µF, 1500 µF, 2200 µF, 3300 µF
16 V — 1000 µF, 1500 µF, 2200 µF, 3300 µF

And the main reason I ordered it: the little box :)

I only started photographing my purchases later, so I don’t have a photo of what it looked like when I unpacked it.
Here’s what it looks like all laid out:


The kit arrived in a regular yellow envelope with the usual bubble wrap. It included the box, dividers (which had to be separated from each other and fitted into place), and three bags of parts sorted by voltage, which had to be put into their compartments.

While sorting them, I found that instead of the 6.3 V, 3300 µF capacitors, the seller had included 10 V, 3300 µF ones. That wasn’t a problem at all. I also found three parts missing and one with a minor defect. I told the seller about the missing parts. He asked what I wanted, so I asked for a refund of 0.8 dollars. He agreed without any trouble (I later understood why he was so quick to do that).

As I mentioned above, the parts came in a box. Honestly, that’s the best thing about this kit. The box is excellent: quite large and convenient, with external dimensions of 255 × 120 × 40 mm. Each compartment measures 40 × 53 mm. I also really like how the top cover is attached. Unlike the usual one-piece design, this one has separate parts, which makes it much more reliable.


I didn’t get a chance to measure the capacitors right away. I took the measurements later, after I’d already received the refund—and I wish I’d done it sooner. That’s why I wouldn’t recommend using these to repair motherboards.

After measuring them, the list of capacitor values looks quite different (and much less encouraging than it did at first).

6.3 V — 1140 µF, 850 µF, 2380 µF, 2600 µF
10 V — 700 µF, 1320 µF, 2200 µF, 2600 µF
16 V — 870 µF, 960 µF, 2150 µF, 2300 µF

The capacitors’ ESR ranges from 0.03 to 0.05, depending on the value (which is actually not bad). I won’t list all the readings here, but feel free to ask if you’re interested.

The capacitors are from two manufacturers. Most are supposedly Sanyo WG, while a few values are from the “well-known Chinese brand” Chongx, which is pretty much on a par with the universally known Chinese brand Noname.
Judging by their specs and dimensions (capacitors with different capacitances but the same voltage rating are all the same size), they’re clearly counterfeit, though not bad ones.

Overall, they’re perfectly fine for non-critical applications, and the box is excellent. I tried to find the same box for sale, but so far I haven’t seen one for less than 6–7 bucks. Maybe I wasn’t looking in the right places. The ones I usually find are tiny—I can’t even imagine what you could store in them—and cost more than a box at the supermarket a minute’s walk from my home. So for now, the Chinese sellers are losing out.

It’s strange that a seller who deals in some pretty interesting and expensive products also sells kits like this. Around the same time, I ordered capacitors from another seller that I planned to use specifically for motherboard repairs. I ordered 100 of the same value, and all 100 arrived in excellent condition and were genuine branded parts.

I hope someone finds this useful.