In article ,
Jim Weir wrote:
bonomi@c-ns. (Robert Bonomi)
shared these priceless pearls of wisdom:


-
-I got my initial commercial 1st class broadcast engineer license in 1970.
-I've got a fair library on the bookshelves.


If you want to play old-fart one-upmanship, my 1st phone was in 1959 on my 16th
birthday. I believe that 16 was the limit back in 'dem golden oldie days. I
did third, second, and first all in one sitting.

16 was still the minimum in '70. I was about 3 mo short of turning 17.
(They were administered locally only once every six months.) I took 'em all
in one sitting, too.

That, of course, was to
supplement my ham ticket which I had obtained in '57.

And I'm not about to play "mine is bigger than yours" only to state that I've
got a few books on my shelves, too. Two of which I haven't even colored yet
{;-)

I won't mention my complete collection of Dr. Seuss, either.

Nor am I about to go on and on about a simple question since the resolution is
that even shorted, this device isn't going to fail catastrophically.

Other people have direct experience to the contrary.


In practice, a shorted electrolytic (save physical "mash" damage) is about as
rare as a shorted resistor.

I'll agree with that -- while noting that wire-wound resistors _can_ short.

RST's gone through, what, half a million of them in
30 years without a shorted one yet.

I've got a far smaller 'sample population', probably only in the low-middle
4 figures. I've seen _one_ that was an 'open' -- factory defect; _no_ innards
whatsoever. I've also had *four* explode due to short. Admittedly, I don't
think they were _less_ than 30 years old.

A couple of dozen opens, but no shorts.
That seems to be the industry trend.