> I’m slightly concerned about the fact that some of the products use electrolytic capacitors. Those hubs get pretty warm, even if you’re not routing your laptop’s power through the hub, and electrolytic capacitors don’t like warm environments, and that’ll significantly shorten their life. However, that’s probably negligible, since lots of resistors are also designed just barely around their load ratings, all the chips run amazingly hot, … it just feels like another product family intended to be used barely one year until it dies, just to end up in the landfill.
Drying out of electrolytic capacitors is a single largest cause of failure of electronic devices these days (apart from physical damage). My friend is in the business of restoring vintage tape recorders and audio amplifiers (from 80s and 90s) and what he does is he just replaces all electrolytes without even looking at them. This usually brings these machines back to life immediately. Resistors usually can handle the heat for extended periods of time: even if some of them bear marks of overheating, they are mostly fine.
Drying out of electrolytic capacitors is a single largest cause of failure of electronic devices these days (apart from physical damage). My friend is in the business of restoring vintage tape recorders and audio amplifiers (from 80s and 90s) and what he does is he just replaces all electrolytes without even looking at them. This usually brings these machines back to life immediately. Resistors usually can handle the heat for extended periods of time: even if some of them bear marks of overheating, they are mostly fine.