12 Apr
2013
12 Apr
'13
noon
On Thu, 11 Apr 2013, Charles Phillips wrote:
Hey can anyone shed some light on this topic?
LCIII Recap - Apple design fault -47uF reversed!
http://68kmla.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=20936
<digest snipped>
Uhm... Tantalums as primary DC filters? Seriously?
My experience with tantalum capacitors is that they really, /really/ don't
like ripple, and when used as a primary filter on a high current DC bus,
over time will tend to short (after developing a tiny hole in oxide
insulator layer), then go into thermal runaway and explode/burn (often
damaging the PC board in the process). Even the product engineers at Kemet
that I worked with in the past recommended against using tantalum
capacitors in this type of application. Anyone else have similar "war
stories" involving tantalum capacitors?