Hi there, If a Game Gear's been recapped for the sound and image, would this imply their lifespan will be in a broad sense longer than the original lifespan of the unit? Obviously this can't be guaranteed, and I'm buying a pre-re-capped GG so no idea what caps have been used, but basically, should I be surprised or feel caught short if it dies again within, say, five or ten years? I suppose it could be put in another way: is the lifespan of the GG's capacitors down to Sega investing in some cheap and nasty ones, or is there something in the GG's circuitry that makes it wear them out faster than usual? Cheers.
From what I've heard, the problem with the Game Gear was mostly terrible capacitors, since apparently there was a bit of an "epidemic" of bad capacitors at the time, coming out of Korea.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague Game Gear however was long before capacitor fiasco. Even decent quality caps will fail anyway and many electronics from 80's and 90's are showing sign of problem. Some brand ages worse than other and Game Gear just happened to have crap cap.
Oh. Like I said, it was just something I heard in a Game Gear repair video. Good thing I don't pass these things off as fact.
Assuming the caps are decent quality and the work was done well, I'd think at least a couple decades of regular use would be a reasonable expectation.
There was not the only one capacitor plague "epidemic" 1991-1995. 1998-2002. And also some companies just make notoriously bad caps. Also there are fakes. And also there's two factors - time and temperature, even the best capacitors can fail fast when it's really hot and device runs 24/7 for 15+ years. It's not that caps will fail in any case - i have very old (1938) radio that still works perfectly on original parts except the power cord and two wires. All caps are still within 70-90% of nominal capacitance, which is damn amazing. Back to topic. If you replace caps in game gear with quality ones you can expect at least 35-40 years before the next replacement.
All electrolytic capacitors have a finite lifespan. Most people are using cheap and fairly nasty capacitors for these mods, so they'll not last as long as others. The shelf life of the capacitor and the operational lifespan will play a part. They're usually around 2 years stored in good conditions and lifespan is typically 1,000 - 2,000 hours @ 85 degrees Celcius. The hotter your climate, the shorter the lifespan. Any electrolytic lasting beyond 7-10 years is doing well... and may well be due replacement.
