On 03/17/2013 12:56 PM, Jon Elson wrote:
Tantalum caps are notorious for failing
catastrophically on equipment that
is left unused for a couple years. If the power supply has lots of current
capacity, then you get the symptom you experienced. I'd change to
aluminum electrolytics, then you don't have to worry about a repeat
performance in a decade.
A year or so ago, when I was working on a new design for work, Dan
Roganti noticed that I had designed in some tantalum capacitors in a
switching regulator. He razzed me pretty good about it, and talked me
into investigating some of the newer low-ESR high-capacitance-per-volume
capacitor technologies. I've since been using some really fantastic
aluminum organic polymer capacitors. They're cheaper than the tantalums
(tantala?), they do not contain a liquid electrolyte (which means they
cannot boil and burst, hence no "K" scoring on the top) and their ESR is
almost unbelievably low.
Just FYI, for those replacing tantalums.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA