Badcaps.net
There is a link to the Store in the upper left colume. Chris is a good guy to buy from. All genuine caps no fakes. Hurry because he is shutting down the Store sometime next year.

Japanese brands are the best. Nichicon, Panasonic, Nippon Chemi-Con.

If you have multiple projects, you might be looking at a big enough order to make it worth going to one of the major online dealers: Mouser, Digikey, Farnell, etc. Their catalogs allow you to match capacitor dimensions and ESR's very closely where necessary.

Pretty much what firage said

Just want to add that I've been ordering from digikey forever, I make a checklist of parts I want and place an order from them every now and then. If you just need a few caps it can be annoying because of the shipping costs so it's best to just buy yourself everything you could possibly need in one fell swoop 😀

BeginnerGuy wrote:

Pretty much what firage said

Just want to add that I've been ordering from digikey forever, I make a checklist of parts I want and place an order from them every now and then. If you just need a few caps it can be annoying because of the shipping costs so it's best to just buy yourself everything you could possibly need in one fell swoop 😀

I almost exclusively use digikey, just because of how fast their shipping is (next day for $8, which is unheard of here). I usually order extras in quantity (especially if there's a price break at 10 or so), that way I've built up a good stock of parts.

firage wrote:

Japanese brands are the best. Nichicon, Panasonic, Nippon Chemi-Con.

If you have multiple projects, you might be looking at a big enough order to make it worth going to one of the major online dealers: Mouser, Digikey, Farnell, etc. Their catalogs allow you to match capacitor dimensions and ESR's very closely where necessary.

+Suncon (Sanyo). Elna is sometimes found in audio gear. It's excellent for that purpose.

I tend to favor Nichicon in critical places (PSU, board VRMs) because they are cheaper than Panasonic and it's pretty available at reputable shops (Farnell, TME).
I also used lower quality caps (Teapo/Yageo, Elite). Some Teapos bulged again after a couple of years. Elite are too fresh to form an opinion.
For audio I'd look into audio forums. They usually recommend some of the Panasonics.

probnot wrote:

BeginnerGuy wrote:

Pretty much what firage said

Just want to add that I've been ordering from digikey forever, I make a checklist of parts I want and place an order from them every now and then. If you just need a few caps it can be annoying because of the shipping costs so it's best to just buy yourself everything you could possibly need in one fell swoop 😀

I almost exclusively use digikey, just because of how fast their shipping is (next day for $8, which is unheard of here). I usually order extras in quantity (especially if there's a price break at 10 or so), that way I've built up a good stock of parts.

+1 but I goto mouser.com here in the states.

Also I only buy Nichicon caps. I've done at least 10 boards, never once had an issue.

https://www.lids.com/

oh wait...

Decided to start with this, I don't know if it's a particularly useful card but it looks easy to work on and there aren't too many 512MB AGP boards around.

But yeah, just look at these.

Eww.

They're all the same brand: SAM YOUNG (or rather, SΛM YOUNG, because someone presumably played too much Hλlf Life.) So don't buy them.

A couple of them even left behind this nasty crust:

Fortunately it cleaned up pretty well with some isopropyl.

Of course one of them was under this sticker, so I had to void the warranty.

Ah well...

Tomorrow I'll go see what my local place has in stock, otherwise it's order time.