Terrible Experience - Repairing a No Name Chinese Inspection Magnifier

[Amarbir[Lynx-India]]

Guys ,
      On Saturday night i forgot to switch off my main inspection magnifier on my main desk .As dave says tanaaa in the next morning i had a sunday blue hee hee instead of monday  .This thing would not switch on horrible  .Hence opened the same up and on inspection i saw one of the caps 10 microfards 250 volts from a stupid nitron brand company had blown up "Leaked from top actually " .Hence i took them out of circuit and got two replacement BC Philips i think Caps and installed them .Just before i switched the same on i though lets check other components .Well tested one MJE13003 Leaky "Transistor " .Got two replacements and Bammmmm whats going on .Upon testing i saw that the base is actually on the left side and mine older once were on the other side "What" .I checked the datasheet and i confirmed that yes my base was actually on the wrong side .Fake chinese MJE13003 ? No idea ,I reversed the new MJE13003 and started the board Tannaaa everything worked fine "Though the CCFL was also replaced the older one was busted  " .Hence always use your multimeter to check if its no name chinese anything is possible .This lamp has served me everyday use since 10 years plus and its fit now for another 10 i hope  .

[G7PSK]

Ten years already. Thats not bad for an electrolytic in the general scheme of things. In fact that's good, and one cannot complain about such service, some of these caps don't last ten minuets.

[Amarbir[Lynx-India]]

Ten years already. Thats not bad for an electrolytic in the general scheme of things. In fact that's good, and one cannot complain about such service, some of these caps don't last ten minuets.

Well,
      Very Very Less used in this time .Just started using this since april 2012 aggressively .The complaint was about the "No idea fake " MJE13003 in reverse .

[SeanB]

I often just take another CFL lamp and use the electronics as a replacement unit. Often cheaper than the spares, and likely to last longer as it will run cooler in this application.