*lets your vintage hardware, hopes and dreams go up in smoke and a bang*

Attached: [throws_a_tantalum].jpg (400x350, 28K)

Other urls found in this thread:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tantalum_capacitor#Failure_modes_and_self-healing_mechanis
youtube.com/watch?v=5rPr2JSKeQ0
youtu.be/XgKLIvEIl4U
twitter.com/SFWRedditImages

tantalum caps are a fucking joke, even new ones just weeks old can literally just burn, i never ever use them on my own designs, no matter what

Truly ridiculous. I don't really know why they just don't use other, better ones.

Haha amateur

Attached: rifa.jpg (640x438, 61K)

But they have better response times (ie closer to an ideal capacitor), or so I thought...


Ceramics are a-ok, I guess...
Dielectric for larger capacities

This.
They blow out like Hbombs

Oh fucking hell I just changed about 30 of those type of capacitors to 1968 B&W Luxor TV. Every single one of them had cracked/exploded.

they give a new meaning to pop music

Came here to post this. Fuck rifa.

You often don't have the luxury of the choice. If you have a small board that can't fit an electrolytic and you need a large capacitance then it's tantalum or nothing.

Tantalum is basically an alternative electrolytic caps for power applications, typically for power rail filtering and as a charge reservoir. Ceramic and poly don't work because they don't typically come in large enough values to be suitable. Going out of your way to avoid tantalum caps would be bad design practice. You just have to know what situations and applications they are appropriate for.

Every capacitor has it's place. Electrolytic and tantalum are not universally bad. They just have characteristics that don't make them suitable for every application. There is no such thing as a bad cap... except paper and RIFA. Fuck those.

What would be the easiest way to test tantalums still on board without any specialized testing hardware? Would continuity tests be alright to test if they're shorted? Or testing the resistance?
Still kinda new to this but would like to get more into restoring old hardware but sadly no budget yet for all the testing equipment like oscilloscope and stuff.

Based

To clarify, I just want to check them before plugging in some old hardware so prevent shit's going up the moment it gets juice

Check continuity and make sure it's not shorted or a low resistance across. Your meter should indicate an open circuit. If that's good the cap is most likely fine. Remember this test cannot be reliably performed in circuit. Aside from that just make sure you connect it right. Tantalum caps are polarized and do not like being reverse polarized, even more so than electrolytic caps. They can blow rather dramatically if you fuck up.

Other than that just know how they fail and what to look for:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tantalum_capacitor#Failure_modes_and_self-healing_mechanis

Awesome, thanks

Oh hey, finally a justifiable time to post this.
This is why you check the fuckers instead of stuffing more power in.

Attached: Typical 8-Bit Guy ''repair''.webm (852x478, 2.58M)

Plug one end in an outlet and lick the other

rude.

I think he wanted to intentionally and literally BTFO it because too lazy to find the one that is defective.
Not the best idea though

Anyone have a link to the original vid?

dood just replace em. or does it take the whole board with it?

youtube.com/watch?v=5rPr2JSKeQ0
about 5 minutes in

now this is a thread

lol

Solid tants have a lifespan of like 1000 years. Their flaw is that if they see more voltage than they're rated for even for an instant they explode.
Like when the PSU starts to go and regulation goes to shit, or you plug in a fucking ATX supply with overshoot that an antique pcb isn't rated for.

Nice claymore you got there.

he did that on purpose to blow out the shit capacitor instead of having to find the one capacitor out of dozens that was causing problems.

>he did that on purpose
Did you watch the video? At no point did he say they did that on purpose.

i would rather bodge multi layer ceramics together than having to deal with tantalums, that shit is nasty!

I've always found it to be polarized caps that go bad

I had an old HP power supply where one of these caps blew on it while I was using it. It was pretty violent, made a bunch of crazy noises & filled the whole room up with smoke along with a horrible smell that took a few days to dissipate.

please no

that's a ceramic cap though

>*leaks all over your electrons*

Attached: IMG_5101.jpg (1830x1847, 755K)

Holy shit. This thing blows up in two stages. First one is a big electric bang then the second one is a flamethrower attack.
youtu.be/XgKLIvEIl4U

Attached: 1554454536808.png (698x325, 322K)

I love how the rifa logo almost has that radial meme blur.

FUCK THOSE