1541 Alignment disk

Electrolytic capacitors can leak or explode but in my experience they don't do it very often. Like anything else, they can be incorrectly specified or a bad batch can cause problems. Batteries are far less commonly found in electronic equipment than capacitors are but I've had more problems with batteries that have leaked than capacitors. Yet nobody seems to spend sleepless nights worrying about batteries in the way they worry about capacitors. I don't understand where this mythology about capacitors has come from. They get blamed for every possible kind of equipment failure whether or not there is evidence to suggest a capacitor might be responsible. It is routinely suggested that any and every problem can be solved by something which has come to be known as "re-capping" which I suspect means replacing all the capacitors in a device. It has even been suggested that no vintage restoration is complete without replacing all the capacitors. There are many different kinds of capacitor. Some variants will outlive all of us, given the chance, without requiring any attention. Some other types could benefit from testing, reforming or replacement if present in very old equipment that has been left unpowered for a long time. Semiconductors, resistors, wound items and other components all have their own failure modes, some silent, some spectacular. Connections in or between components fail too. Capacitors just aren't that special. I suppose in a few years time the wheel will have turned again and the resistor will become the universally evil component which routinely explodes, catches fire and is the cause of all failures? And will the new solution to everything become "re-ressing"? If it does, remember, you heard it here first! Regards, Peter Coghlan.