"Wurth Electronics" aluminum electrolytic caps - good, bad?

[cvanc]

http://katalog.we-online.com/en/pbs/search/capacitors

Hi troops-

Never heard of Wurth for capacitors, any comments from the assembled braintrust?  Are they respectable stuff?  Thanks...

[helius]

Wuerth (voo-ert) is a major chemical company in Germany. You can be pretty sure they are not cutting any corners.

[Ice-Tea]

I agree on the cutting corners but I kinda doubt they are making their own. If you read their catalog, they do a bit of everything. Kinda doubtfull they are making LEDs, caps, connectors, diodes and a gazillion other things. I suppose their magnetics are their corebussines and the rest is outsourced.

Just my guess.

[exmadscientist]

I haven't tried their caps, but their inductors and connectors are top notch

Their LEDs are nothing special, but then an SMD chip LED usually isn't.

[mrpackethead]

I use wurth for lots of stuff, its not the cheapest, but the quality is superb an they are easy to deal with.

[Pjotr]

Wurth is a renowned German company. Last 10 years they became a bit like Vishay: Selling almost everything. Funny about the caps because most major western capacitor brands seem to merge into Vishay while Wurth starts now their own division.

I have used their polymer hybrid elcaps for a year now and they are top notch, very low ESR, good HF behaviour and available up to 50V DC. I wouldn't be surprised if their fabs are located in China though.

[poorchava]

Wuerth even manufactures PCBs. Mostly the high-end ones using peculiar technologies like wire-laid for example. They are used a lot in automotive power electronics.

Sent from my HTC One M8s using Tapatalk.

[hans]

I've had good experiences with Wurth in general, they are definitely not some Shenzen level product.
That being said, I haven't got any experience with their capacitors.

If their magnetics are anything to go by, they should be top notch. Their range of magnetics is quite large, they are quite eager (read: they expect coffee when they unexpectedly show up or maybe call) to talk and sample to small customers although it seems they do prefer to get some "big design" wins every now and then.

I've also ordered some PCB's there; and they were superb quality. They do 4 layer boards for similar or better prices like EuroCircuits, arguably with better options. Students also get a discount I believe.

[mrpackethead]

If you are in Australia or NZ, and are "in the trade" ( ie, not hobbist ) then pm, and i can put you in touch with the sales team..
Their datasheets are top notch, their web site really easy, they have great sample kits of parts avaialble for very resonable prices and they have online libarys and 3d models of all their parts online..

They are not the cheapest, but you are buying quality parts.

[benn]

I have been using a lot of wurth connectors in the last 15 years. Quality is above average. If compared to Ebay connectors, they are far more superior than those China made connectors. A lot of brands uses Wurth products and they are not cheap.

[setq]

I've used them a couple of times for repair replacements (sourced from Rapid here in the UK). Seem ok - still working and no explosions 4 years later. However I'm more of a fan of the Vishay/BC/Sprague ones as they are significantly cheaper, the range is wider and they are also never out of stock anywhere. Plus I have actually vent tested them and know they don't explode. Also I've used them for 20 years and never had a single failure.

[jitter]

I've used them a couple of times for repair replacements (sourced from Rapid here in the UK). Seem ok - still working and no explosions 4 years later. However I'm more of a fan of the Vishay/BC/Sprague ones as they are significantly cheaper, the range is wider and they are also never out of stock anywhere. Plus I have actually vent tested them and know they don't explode. Also I've used them for 20 years and never had a single failure.

Würth Elektronik (should be pronounced the German way) is basically a company similar to Vishay, Kemet or Tyco Electronics with a hand in a bit of everything. Probably mostly acquired by takeovers.
I did look at a WE's caps once and the company said it was new terrain for them (w.r.t. inductors they seem to be pretty well known already).

Most of our industrial customers stick to the well known brands, and I too count BC/Vishay among them, not just the Japanese big boys. Not until very recently did I see WE caps appear in a semi-industrial design, so perhaps we'll see more of them in the future.

Did anyone notice a capacitor brand going "missing" at the same time WE introduced caps into their range?
I did once with a British brand a couple of years ago (I forget the name) that was acquired by Kemet, that's why I ask.

[razberik]

One should try sampling these caps from them.
I assume it regarding my experience. I sampled a few flyback transformers from them and they were always very kind and helpful.

[setq]

Did anyone notice a capacitor brand going "missing" at the same time WE introduced caps into their range?
I did once with a British brand a couple of years ago (I forget the name) that was acquired by Kemet, that's why I ask.

Not sure who that was. They bought out Evox-RIFA a few years ago but I'm not sure if they were UK based. It's pretty difficult to find all the brand associations these days. Occasionally I'll order some generic Vishay parts and find some Sprague branded ones turn up. That's when you know. The finest being a £0.20 order from RS for two small electrolytics and Sprague extended life ones turn up! I'd have paid 20x that for them 15 years ago!

[Watth]

Wuerth (voo-ert)

Yeah, no.

[jitter]

Did anyone notice a capacitor brand going "missing" at the same time WE introduced caps into their range?
I did once with a British brand a couple of years ago (I forget the name) that was acquired by Kemet, that's why I ask.

Not sure who that was. They bought out Evox-RIFA a few years ago but I'm not sure if they were UK based. It's pretty difficult to find all the brand associations these days. Occasionally I'll order some generic Vishay parts and find some Sprague branded ones turn up. That's when you know. The finest being a £0.20 order from RS for two small electrolytics and Sprague extended life ones turn up! I'd have paid 20x that for them 15 years ago!

I remembered the brand: BHC.
A couple of years ago we switched to these for a low volume (20/year) product. The BOM called for Vishay-BC caps, but at the time they had very long lead times and a rather high MOQ.
The following year I found a mix of of the exact same caps, but some of the newer ones were now carrying the Kemet brand. Other than the BHC brand having changed to Kemet, they looked identical.

[mrpackethead]

I understand Wurth is making them in their own plant in China.. 

I've used a few now, the alumium Polymers are really good for DC/DC conversion where you need low ESR..    Havn't had any go pop yet.

Wurth has a good text "ABC of capacitors"..  Extremely boring reading, but essential information!

[helius]

Wuerth (voo-ert)

Yeah, no.

A basic understanding of English phonetics, and the dipthongs it is able to spell, or not, would have saved you the trouble.

[jitter]

Yeah, that's how Würth sounds in German.

I can tell that they had the narrator practice because the W must not be pronounced like a full on W (like in English or Dutch), it must have quite a bit of V-sound in it as well. If you listen closely, the very first pronunciation at the beginning is correct. The second one a tad later is too much W and too little V.

[Watth]

Wuerth (voo-ert)

Yeah, no.

(snip)
A basic understanding of English phonetics, and the dipthongs it is able to spell, or not, would have saved you the trouble.

Well, ue(de) = ü(de) = u(fr), a sound that does not exist in English.

[tooki]

The point is that the German ü (which is what "ue" in German is) is one single sound. It's not two vowels, and Watth was correct in correcting this.

Edit: In standard German, the r does itself become a vowel at the beginning of a new syllable in some situations. (This isn't one of them, however.) See my other post below.

[jitter]

This reminds me of the film "Inglourious Basterds".
What I find good about it is the use of the the different languages and actors native to those languages, rather than everything in one language (usually English in case of Hollywood productions), or voice overs.

I will never forget this scene about how one can tell where one is from his or her accent.
Interestingly, in this scene "München" (Munich) and "Frankfurt" are pronounced, clearly showing the difference between "u" and "ü".
The " above the vowel changes the sound, when that symbol is not present on a printing device, "ue" is used instead to denote the "ü", so München could also be written as Muenchen. And it's indeed a single sound.

The " (called Umlaut in German) is also used on "a" and "o" to change their sound.

In English I never saw the usage of the " other than in the name of the Brontë family.

[helius]

My point is that the sound is a diphthong (a liaison between two vowel sounds). Some diphthongs can be spelled using the letters in English (oy for example), and others, such as ür, can't. It's little use to tell an English speaker how to say a word using letters that he doesn't speak; a situation exactly parallel would be a Xhosan saying "you spelled it with the wrong kind of click".

[jitter]

Sorry to repeat this, the German "ü" (or "ue") is not a dipthong, it's a single vowel. And as a result "Würth" does not have a gliding tone in the vowel.

[helius]

There's a reason I wrote "ür". In dialects which are non-rhotic (including High German), the letter R marks a vowel shift instead of a consonant. This mean that vowel+r is a dipthong.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhoticity_in_English