Dipped tantalums in old computers and similar devices can be also replaced with modern low ESR electrolytic or polymer capacitors. They were using tantalums back then because they didn't have anything better.

@ivolol

19 күн бұрын

Eh, be careful. 5% of the time the near-or-above ohm ESR of a tantulum could be a crucial factor in creating a suitable pole in an analogue circuit, that keeps it stable. For example there are many many older regulator chips that *will* oscillate if you put a "no-ohm" ESR modern poly/ceramic on their output.

@pault6533

19 күн бұрын

They also didn't have to worry about Tantalum DFARS. New technologies emerge when materials are restricted.

@humidbeing

19 күн бұрын

That's not entirely true. Many voltage regulators, and SMPS designs require a min ESR to be stable. This is why tantalums are spec'd in the datasheets. For basic decoupling ESR doesn't matter, anyway, so you're wasting money using low ESR parts in that application.

@fredflintstone8048

18 күн бұрын

Agreed and when those old Tantalums failed they tended to fail shorted rather than fail open which is preferable.

used to use a lot of solid tants in our products at the time, they were quite big and heavy compared to the standard wet electrolytic ones. our units went in the cockpits of jet fighters and big turbine transports. vibration was a big thing and solid tants seem to survive it well. watching a PCB bend up and down during a resonance search test, it was not surprising how much effort went in to placement on the PCB. wrong place and it could be exit cap stage left. 🙂

@johnwest7993

19 күн бұрын

I learned long ago on spy satellite bds that the word 'flight' meant something.

@VEC7ORlt

16 күн бұрын

Ain't testing to extremes so fun? Seeing things ice over, overheat, bend and break. Vibratory tables were so fun.

@TheEmbeddedHobbyist

16 күн бұрын

@@VEC7ORlt not when you have to redesign the PCB layout again 😞

Tantalums also make fine crowbar protective circuit devices... you old timers know what I'm talking about.

ESR is also frequently dependent, I'd imagine your meter is testing somewhere from 100Hz to 100KHz ceramic caps are much better at high frequency. In the region of a few milliohms at 1Mhz and above.

@_droid

15 күн бұрын

You can see the meter is set for 1kHz

@Graham_Wideman

5 күн бұрын

5:38 "These are all tested at 1kHz".

I like the fact that there is still some voodoo and black magic in electronics. I'm a big Bob Pease fan (RIP) and would cackle whenever he would suggest a "whiff" of capacitance. One technique he described involved using a length of twisted pair as a capacitor, snip the length shorter until the circuit behaved as intended. I am the proud owner of a Tektronix 485, and came across a warning in one of the repair manuals not to wiggle certain transistors in their sockets, because they had been positioned deliberately during factory calibration.

@noel3422

18 күн бұрын

That's fairly stupid of any engineer to place that component in any gear.

@SamiJumppanen

16 күн бұрын

When I was studying electronics in the 90's, analog TV was still a thing, and I remember someone saying about the HF that to get everything working right sometimes you just had to try out different components when designing the board around IC's. I'm guessing SMD'fication and better design tools have suppressed trial and error, but on the other hand, when frequencies go up there's always new world to explore.

@Graham_Wideman

5 күн бұрын

"voodoo and black magic" = "the theory you don't understand and don't have a simulator for".

All these four decades since "E over I R" & Boolean became soldered to my Pre-Frontal Lobes, figured I was the only one who used 'Ohmage'. ;-]

Solid Tantalums have really good electrical characteristics but, like all the different capacitor types, the application must make best use of that particular set of component tradeoffs. Solid Tantalums should NEVER be used to bypass a power supply line, unless a series resistor of at least 3 ohms per volt is used. These capacitors cannot tolerate ripple current or voltage surges. You commonly see solid tantalums used on power supply lines, and they appear to work fine but, they will short out without warning and catch on fire. Ceramic Capacitors nicely fill many applications, again when properly applied. The "K Factor" (capacitance per unit volume) must be carefully considered though. The higher the K Factor, the greater the capacitance versus package size but, with the tradeoff of higher piezo effects. This causes the capacitor to physically change shape with with applied voltage or, generate voltage when mechanical stress is applied to capacitor body. Therefore, if the ceramic capacitor is to be used in a high quality/high performance circuit, I only recommend using a dielectric constant of either NP0/C0G or X7R. Avoid at all costs, dielectrics such as Z5U.

@GianF123

15 күн бұрын

Very interesting. Thanks.

the standard ESR measurement is always done at 100kHz and not 1kHz. Datasheets only report ESR at 100kHz. But that's probably not the main reason to use Tantalums. Ceramics can be highly voltage dependent and thus bring a lot of nonlinearity with them that Tantalums dont. The most important thing about Tantalums is their temperature stability and moisture independence. So, no they should not be replaced with ceramics. Doing the opposite is OK but hugely expensive.

@VEC7ORlt

16 күн бұрын

Why does it matter for ESR if its 1k or 100k - if the meter can distinguish the static portion with sufficient resolution its the same ESR. Voltage dependency is easily countered by looking at specs and choosing accordingly - bigger case size and voltage mitigates the issue. Temperature stabilty of x7r is what +/-15%? If used for decoupling - why does it matter? If you need timing and rely on caps - you're doing it wrong. So yes, ceramics can absolutely replace tantalums, and come with fewer caveats and fire than tantalums.

@dl5244

16 күн бұрын

@@VEC7ORlt it matters b/c usually ESR varies (non-linear) with frequency. Assuming the noise input bandwidth is unknown, it's most useful to measure ESR at the self-resonant frequency so you can know the minimum impedance.

@dl5244

16 күн бұрын

in my experience, the disadvantages with Tantalums vs Ceramics are: 1. catastrophic failure (fire) under reverse polarity and over voltage 2. orders of magnitude higher parasitic leakage (with temperature dependence) - not acceptable in low power circuits 3. larger footprint and size for small value parts 4. higher cost the standard mitigation for ceramic weaknesses of DC bias and operating temperature is to use C0G, Class 1, and/or automotive grade ceramics that have more comparable performance (and still usually cheaper than tantalum). The standard Z5U and even X7R commercial grade ceramics are crap with DC bias (but some manufacturers are better than others)

@VEC7ORlt

16 күн бұрын

@@dl5244 if you need to find esr at self resonance you are opening a whole new barrel of worms, which doesn't include simple replacements that will be good enough, but delving into intricacies of PDN design and verification, how deep do you want this rabbit hole to be?

I've once purchased 500 MLCC 1206 capacitors with a 47uF 50V rating and I tested to have an ESR of 0.08 ohms at 1kHz! They perform really well even at 35VDC! Sadly I bought them from an Indian online store called hnhcart, and I'm not sure about the manufacturer because I can't find capacitors with such high capacitance at that voltage on major electronics retailers like DigiKey, LCSC, or Mouser! Tantalum capacitors are always expensive, and they don't have as low resistance as the MLCC often have! And I've seen most polypropylene or polyester film capacitors do have quite low ESR! I have got a 105uF huge 250VAC motor starter capacitor, which has an ESR of 0.01 ohms! Charge it up at 30VDC and short it, and it gives quite a loud bang LOL!

@Mr.Leeroy

17 күн бұрын

47uF 50V in 1206 can't be right. Smells like BS. E.g. GRM31CR61C226KE15 - 22uF 16V 1206 and provides with 50% of nominal capacitance at only 5V bias..

It is always the 16V tantalum on the 12V rail that shorts out the mainboard. The 16V tantalum on the 5V rail are usually good.

@davebleamwa2bxy799

19 күн бұрын

25% headroom on voltage rating isnt enough,but with consumer electronics when every penny counts, thats what goes in. At least 50% of expected voltage is what i'd feel good with.

@lo2740

18 күн бұрын

@@davebleamwa2bxy799 Polymer Tantalum require almost no derating.

I hate to point this out, but the measurement is likely flawed. The ESR of the leads used is likely to be > 0.5 Ohm. Therefore you'll at best read ESR of 0.5 ohms. Was the ESR of the leads accounted for? According to the specification of the instrument for measurements This is used to offset the leads ESR. Create a short on that last unused pad on the test fixture to duplicate as close as possible connect an NULL the instrument. The expected ESR (the specification for ceramic caps is very commonly 10mOhms or less, which can easily be found at a resource such as digi-key) should have given you a clue about the measurement technique.

@Graham_Wideman

5 күн бұрын

Yes, I agree. Though in his hand-written table, there are values as low as 0.14 ohm. That and the scribbled out column make me a little skeptical of the whole exercise, though I appreciate the effort.

An early lesson for me in electronics was building up a small switching converter that specified electrolytic or tantalum decoupling capacitors. Being too clever for my own good, I decided to use some of the much smaller and more convenient ceramics I had on hand. The converter oscillated wildly because the ESR was _too low,_ and the circuit wouldn't operate correctly until I added a 1-ohm resistor in series with the capacitors. That'll teach me to read the datasheets more carefully.

My company makes hi temp downhole equipment, we have given up using tantalum long time ago, they where trouble makers getting shorted every time, we replaced them all with ceramics and standard wet capacitors for the high capacitance. I am sure there must be a specific application where tantalum performs better, but in my experience, whenever I see a tantalum cap I see failure coming soon !😂

Leaving a comment to show engagement for the KZread algos. This was a GREAT video. Well done. Bring on IMSAI Dog. :) This reminds me of Project Farms videos. Needs a spreadsheet at the end, but the hand written notes work just as well. Well done!

@stevenwright901

19 күн бұрын

Engagement for IMSAI Dog

@chriswalford4161

18 күн бұрын

I like scrappy hand-written notes - it’s what we do

@chriswalford4161

18 күн бұрын

……and dog too, obvs…..

Really interesting. Thanks!

This brings up an interesting case: the TruSDX website says that the Tayloe detector integrating capacitors (100nF each iirc) can be replaced by some (expensive) 0603 Tantalum caps for better performance. If Tantalum actually has worse ESR at those values (and likely also at the frequencies it's working with), why would Tantalum be better than ceramic in this case? Maybe it's because X7R ceramics change capacitance with voltage and temperature and have piezoelectric effects while Tantalums don't (at least as much).

@IMSAIGuy

19 күн бұрын

I suspect as others have commented, that 'solid tantalums' have better ESR that all the others, but expensive. I do not have any to test

@sajjsamm

19 күн бұрын

I tried replacing some ceramic caps with tantalum ones in the usdx hardware and got quite good performance, especially in the opamp circuit. I had a ton of image rejection issues that were resolved after switching to tantalum and, of course, the piezoelectric effect related issues. It might have something to do with their tolerances also. generic ceramic caps have higher tolerance (20%) compared to tantalum caps (10% to 5%), and tantalum caps have a much lower derating factor, and that makes them more suitable for decouplings in the usdx circuit.

The frequency ESR is measured at depends upon the application and if too low is going to give a false high value owing to reactance rather than internal resistance.

@Graham_Wideman

5 күн бұрын

Could you explain that reasoning a bit more?

amazing! U made it shine!

I don't know how many times I've seen old teardrop tantalum's just going into full short mode and clamp a voltage bus. I know the engineers use them because of their ESR values but I've started just replacing them in old equipment when I run across them. BTW when they short they'll pump out a ton of the magic smoke. 🙂

@al_lazy3519

19 күн бұрын

Well at least they will be easy to spot!

@edmaster3147

19 күн бұрын

old age comes with disadvantages clearly

@johnwest7993

19 күн бұрын

Pretty much what I wrote, too. I remember hearing that it was one particular company's dipped tants that would pop. They had made a whole bunch of bad ones. The ones I had pop were always dirty yellow, so there might have been some truth to that. After the first 2 popped I swapped out 2 dozen of them in a sig gen I got at a government auction. Fortunately most of them were on plug-in cards.

@pizzablender

19 күн бұрын

@@johnwest7993 I had a pale red one short out. Replaced with normal electrolytics. Which would have been interesting in the test sequence as well.

@lmamakos

18 күн бұрын

That's why they're more expensive; you're also buying that high-pressure magic smoke.

Always interesting. What is the voltage rating of the SMD tantalums?

Have you looked at the”polymer” tants ? Where do they fit in this scheme of things?

Great video.

Good subject, considerations and video! Sort of related... I have a DE-5000. I need one of those quick-reference spreadsheets that shows the values to expect for different capacitors. There are several of these on the web. However, they seem to contain conflicting values. I would really appreciate a link to a reliable set of values. Thanks! Cheers!

ceramic chip caps, especially higher capacities, are really very sensitive to DC bias. near their rated DC voltage, there isn't a lot left of the rated capacity. Keep that in mind when you design your circuit.

There are different types of ceramic capacitors, more than a few. Which type are you using?

Nice video! Where can we get the prototyping PCBs? Those are pretty slick.

@IMSAIGuy

19 күн бұрын

"Surfboards" by Capital Advanced Technologies I am currently working on my own versions as those are not cheap

Did you find a source for those edge SIP pins? I don't have a particular need but now I want them... :)

@IMSAIGuy

18 күн бұрын

yes, www.te.com/en/search.html?q=1544210&source=header

If tantalums are anything like regular electrolytic caps, then the higher the maximum voltage rating of the cap, the lower the ESR value. (Therefore the lowest ESR you can find in an electrolytic, is a high mfd value combined with a high voltage rating (e.g. expect an ESR reading of

I think there is another factor to throw into the mix - related to ESR but not quite the same. That is self-resonant frequency. That sets the upper limt of a capacitors usefulness. Even with modern electrolytics this could limit their use as decouplers in modern high-frequency logic systems.

It would be interesting to see these capacitors on a VNA also

Which is better as an audio capacitor? ceramic vs electrolytic

Both ceramic and tantalum capacitors have their own place, for high frequency applications ceramic capacitors are ideal due to their low ESR and excellent performance at high frequencies, for low frequency applications where stable operation over voltage fluctuations and temperature variations is essential tantalums should be used despite their higher ESR.

Thanks

Any comments on tantalum vs. niobium caps?

Ceramics are not very temperature stable either, their value is kind of a suggestion, tantalum’s are quite stable though, great for timing circuits

Have you zeroed the leads resistance? I use tantalium caps when I dont find high enough capacitance in ceramics.

@IMSAIGuy

19 күн бұрын

Yes, I calibrated the leads

@lo2740

18 күн бұрын

the main point of tantalums is the capacitance density, in some case ceramic jsut wont reach the require capacitance for a given space.This also have to do with the fact that modern polymer tantalum require almost no derating, while for ceramic it should be at least 50%, and capacitance density is a direct function of the voltage.

We know that by experience, Tantalums do not have a better ESR than ceramics, often worst, their main advantage is capacitance density, they are often the only way to add high capacitance in areas where space is at a premium, for example a 220uF 6V on 3528 package, good luck reaching 220uF at 6V (so, 15V on ceramic due to derating) on a 3528 footprint, it doesnt exist. However it should also be accounted that this capacitor will not have a suepr great ESR and it may cause problem for a very dynamic response (RF PA for example). The main downside of tantalums is the failure mode for polarity reversal or fault, which is short/explosion. However we nowdays use polymer tantalum capacitors (black, instead of yellow) and these do not suffer from such catastrophic failure mode. A last point to add is that there is almost no derating required with tantalum polymer caps, if the rail is 5V, it is often OK to use a 6V cap, and definitely a waste to use a 10V.

I see your measurements are at 1 kHz. Also, you don’t show either aluminum or WET tantalum capacitor characteristics. Could you possibly have some old wet tantalum capacitors for comparison? Very rare nowadays, but you might find some in old PCBs. You could recognize them from their very high weight, the hermetic structure - cap welded to the can and the positive wire fed on through a glass frit, rather than some rubber or plastic. I am not sure if I have any, although I have the measuring capabilities up to 13 MHz on one instrument, up to 110 MHz on another one and theoretically up to 1 GHz on two others. But one thing I am cautious about is the ESR of the solid state electrolytics. I have had two fires in one application, 120 Hz and harmonics ripple apparently causing the overheating. In many cases they “safely!” short out, but my two fire cases ended up being just two bare wires sticking up from the board. On the other hand, I never seen failed wet tantalums.

indeed, good video.

Mebbe level the playing field by tally RC time constant ?

The last years in our small repair business i had much more broken, i.e. shorted ceramic caps than tantalium. Not the tiny pF and nF Capacitors of course but startung at about 1-10uF i would call it a focal point of disruption... Moreover i want to remember Your cheap chinese 555 board with the ceramic capacitor beeing very sensitive / unstable to voltage change...

tantalums make a nice low esr replacement for electrolytics in a lot of applications. i think people are overgeneralizing from that.

Doing repairs on older equipment like the old IBM-PCs, IBM-XTs etc. my concern with Tantalum capacitors is that they tend to short. I've found many of them to be shorted and of course I don't replace them with another tantalum cap. I tend to go with a good quality higher temperature rated electrolytic.

The inductance of the caps also comes into play, was hoping you would measure that as well to show that.

Interesting I never thought of ceramic caps as being peizo electric but of course they could be. I learn something new every day :)

@simontillson482

16 күн бұрын

Yeah, it’s the barium titanate dielectric. It packs a high K due to ferroelectric properties. All ferroelectric materials are also piezoelectric, so unavoidable but it does vary somewhat between different formulations (X7R, X5R, Y5U etc.). If you really need low microphony, use a CG0 dielectric. It’ll be a lot bigger tho!

How about comparing low ESR electrolytic with standard electrolytic bypassed with a ceramic cap.

It would have been good to see the meter being nulled at the start of the video. You did null the measurement system, right?

@IMSAIGuy

8 күн бұрын

yes, open short cal

When I needed low ESR I always used paralleled ceramic disks. I've had shorting problems with dipped tants in old test equipment. I hate it when one grenades in the middle of a 3 day test regimen.

I agree. Tantalums were just fairly high capacity, fairly low esr, very low microphonics, in a fairly small package. That used to make them irreplaceable. That's not so true anymore. They are also volatile, so if something else more stable will do the job, by all means, use that something else.

MYTHBUSTERS : Capacitors Episode

Nice Info

My LCR meter is a Der EE DE-5000. I need to make up Kelvin clips for it; I bought the clips but haven't built the adapter yet. Not sure the Keysight one at nearly $600 is a whole lot better than the DE-5000.

A homage to ohmage.

good work. two ideas: a research colleague of mine said "tantalums have no sense of humor." Next, how does capacitance and ESR change with dc bias across the capacitor? And capacitor type? Difference between tantalums and MLCC with different operating/bias dc voltage? If you don't think there is any change... And hint, it's not linear!

Let’s not forget that ceramics don’t explode. Tantalum is an inferior capacitor unless you need an absolutely massive capacitor, in which case it’s superior to aluminum electrolytic. At small values, ceramic is 100% better.

Perhaps for low ESR you should use POSCAP tantalum capacitors! Also, the packages with the legs that come out the side and are bent around to the bottom are supposed to be superior in vibration. Recently I used larger value ceramic MLC capacitors for a multimeter DC decay timing circuit (LCD Backlight) and got way less stay-on time than I calculated. So I put an even bigger value capacitance and the stay-on time didn't get any longer, actually shorter. I deduced the MLC's had too much of a capacitance loss due to DC voltage bias. I was using random take-off SMD's, so I didn't know the chemistry of my samples. Only after switching to typical yellow tantalum capacitors did I get the long delay I was looking for.

Your test leads looked skinny to me, what was their resistance ?

@IMSAIGuy

18 күн бұрын

they are not skinny and I did an open/short calibration that takes care of anything

what about max frequency

Would be nice to talk about the Q factor in which ESR is part of.

Type II ceramic capacitors are extremely sensitive to vibration. So much so that the same material is used in piezoceramic sensors. That in conjunction with reduction of capacitance under DC bias makes them unsuitable for many signal path applications. Type I capacitors don't have either of those issues, and they are frequently a good choice for signal path components when capacitance values less than 0.1uF are required.

Only Acid filled porous Tantalum capacitors have mOhms ESR and no inductance.

Leakage is something to be concerned about as well. Tantalum caps are worse than ceramics but better than eletrolytics. Also, capacitor behavior is much more complex than a static room temperature reading. Frequency, temperature, DC bias, and inductance should all be considered as well.

I wondered, on your meter it showed "1 kHz" when measuring ESR. Most often ESR is measured at 50 or 100 kHz I believe, at least mine do

@kodiak2fitty

19 күн бұрын

My DE-5000 handheld LCR meter has options for 100, 120, 1 kHz, 10 kHz and 100 kHz. It kinda depends on the meter and how you intend to use the capacitor. The 100 and 120 Hz settings are appropriate for AC to DC power circuits with alum electrolytics.

@greengrayradio1394

19 күн бұрын

@@kodiak2fitty For switch mode electronics which work on several kHz you can measure an electrolytic with a cap meter on 120 or 1000 Hz, and it will show a good capacitance reading (but still the cap may be unusable in the SM circuit. Not all LCR meters show ESR, some do

@kodiak2fitty

18 күн бұрын

@@greengrayradio1394 You are correct. I didn't add the word "linear" to my comment. I'd also argue that 100 kHz is not enough for modern switch mode AC or DC designs with 1+ MHz switching rates. As for dedicated LCR meters not having ESR measurements? I've not encountered that. Even $100 LCR meters support that today. A multimeter used in capacitance mode lacking ESR measurements? yes that could happen.

Tantalum is often over rated. ESR often seems to me to be about capacitance value & voltage rating. That 327uF cap with the low ESR might only be good to 3V with it's low ESR of 0.14 Ohms. The same value and type with a higher (often more usable voltage rating) can have much higher ESR. Another related interesting thing people say is that they switched to ceramic to avoid conflict materials and rare earth stuff but you can find those in many ceramics too. The parasitic inductance is also a fun one, people forget about it and just follow the traditions of paralleling multiple caps. I used to use 0.1uF ceramics for power supply decoupling but now I use 0603 ceramics at 10uF or 1uF instead because their internal resonance is good enough. It seems like the 0.1uF thing is a legacy of the through hole days and those wire leads really added inductance.

@ElectricEvan

19 күн бұрын

I would also like to add that if you measure close enough a lot of things become microphonic. At my old job we were using PXI-4461 cards and HP 35665A DSA's for everything and we would regularly spot microphonics from things you might not expect.

@gorak9000

18 күн бұрын

It also depends on the operating frequency - usually 0.1uf decoupling caps are used on digital gates, and chips - the same decoupling for a chip that runs at 2Mhz isn't going to cut it for a chip that runs at 3GHz...

@ElectricEvan

18 күн бұрын

@@gorak9000 Well at GHz range you have well exited the range where you can use 0.1uF. Those frequencies you need to check everything to use for that domain.

Nice Info on Capacitors, Really good for New People learning Basic Electronics.. I miss telling New People to get the Old Radio Shack Mini Books on build demo electronic Projects, I still have mine that I keep on the LM555 One Shot timer IC builds I used for Displays on equipment I added on...

Ceramics have lower ESR, and surprised your results were so shitty for them.

I think the concerns about microphonics comes from audio equipment like radios. A radio mounted in a car is even more of a concern. I would have been interested to see you vibrate them with a piezo while biased to compare microphonic pickup. I have heard some pretty crazy crashing noises when just tapping disk ceramics before.

Great video. To my knowledge, tants were never a substitute for ceramic, instead they were a much better option than electrolytics, in terms of lifespan, filtering, and everything but size and cost. Now it's ceramics replacing tant. Which should work fine unless the circuit depends on the cap not being great...but that wouldn't be a great design, in my view.

Yeah but ceramics are all over place when it comes to temp, so it's worth taking your time when choosing for your application, I think we all know that and that Tants blow up so that's a worry lol ! yep caps are complicated.....cheers.

People like to jedge based on comparison - one having bigger is worse than one having smaller ESR. But did they chceck what is reqirement for given application? ? -According to applications one which is within limits is good , one which is outside is bad. That is what is supposed to be judged, Comparisons between two good products is useless and leads to useless decisions. For above tests I could ask basic question: is 1 Ohm good or not good. And without exact application true answer shuld be we no idea, but with practice I would say for 99,9 % cases it is fair litte. .

A admire the effort, but I am rather skeptical that you're getting reliable ESR measurements with those clip leads.

@IMSAIGuy

5 күн бұрын

the leads were used in the open/short calibration that removes any problems

My question would be do they Sound better??

@gorak9000

18 күн бұрын

They make a similar sound when they blow up, yes

@IMSAIGuy

18 күн бұрын

but, different smell

@gorak9000

18 күн бұрын

@@IMSAIGuy Very true - burning tantalums is a very distinct and awful smell. I've heard exploding Rifa's are bad too, but I haven't yet had one blow up on me to compare the smell to tantalums

BTW I have an Imsai too :)

now wet those smd ceramic capacitors, and measure them again.

I rather wanna see bad ESR or microphonic effect, then get my house, lab or garage burn down....

@tiagoferreira086

17 күн бұрын

Many years ago my dad bought a used milling machine that came with a "gift electric match lol" in a form of a tantalum cap, luckily it was in a full metal box and the location on the board allowed for a simple fix without much damage around.

@bretfuzz925

17 күн бұрын

Tants are fine if you derate them properly and protect them from reverse current and internal dissipation. Some applications may require a soft start circuit to limit inrush current. If you dig deep enough you can find the proper application notes.

@BMRStudio

17 күн бұрын

@@bretfuzz925 Modern , maybe, the olds naaah! They had a super tight tolerance, so if You had a burnt rectifier bridge, the fire was guaranteed! Elna made a nice money on replacing all tants with their mustard caps, all overt the world. On some DDR product packaging even wroted “No Tantalium capacitors!”

@jonledwith1353

17 күн бұрын

Which directly supports what I said. Typical voltage derating for a tant is ~2x. In old designs people thought you could use a 6.3V tant on a 5 V rail. That makes the FIT very high. We used them “properly” in high volume 20 year mtbf applications by proper derating and protection and not a single board came back with a failed tantalum capacitor. Any capacitor has the capability of failure. Tantalums just fail more spectacularly.

i really like the content of this video but the camera movements are really unfortunate. why not use 2 cameras, one points to the meter, the other to what you’re measuring? i appreciate your content a lot.

You have measured like 1 ohm ESR for those smd ceramic caps? There must be some problem with measurement method.

Ceramics have problems when voltage is aplied to it. Electrolytics dont have this. Decoupling ceramic caps loose some of its capacitance. And yes, ceramics are noisy in analog circuit.

There are much better tantalum capacitors on different pc video cards and motherboards. They have about miliohms and capacity 220-470 uF

@zyeborm

19 күн бұрын

You'll probably find those are mostly solid electrolytic capacitors not tantalum. Not many tantalums used anywhere these days, they are a lot more expensive.

@mikesradiorepair

19 күн бұрын

@@zyeborm A lot more expensive because it is a rather rare metal. Many people don't realize tantalum is also a conflict mineral like gold, tin and tungsten.

You need network analyser vs frequency, , that Fluke don't tell you the true 👋👋👋👋👋👋👋👋👋👋👋👋👋

@LarixusSnydes

19 күн бұрын

That was not a Fluke, but a Keysight, regardless of the similar colour scheme, but indeed, LCR for caps varies with frequency.

Cap Bait. Lol. Let the comment wars begin. 😂

@IMSAIGuy

18 күн бұрын

always a good conversation starter

deleted

@IMSAIGuy

18 күн бұрын

I tested at 1khz, did murata spec the resonant point?

@perenis-z9r

18 күн бұрын

@@IMSAIGuy It was flat, because I inadvertently had the "simple model" selected, which appears to choose the minimum. "Precise model" is similar to what you got at 1kHz, so please excuse my mistake. I'll add the link below

Great video, but would have been more scientific to use the same value capacitor on something like a 2.2uf capacitor of each type, That and maybe having a higher and lower voltage rated cap to directly show the effects. Most testers and manufacturers I believe report specs at 100khz,, so those numbers might be more apples to apples for those doing their own tests at home. The "magic" capacitors I always thought were organic polymer, but that's probably overkill in most applications

Tantalum soldered on nice polished aluminum electronic board on military airplaine, like a superhero, resistant on most factors, vibration, humidity, etc, etc..but give him some volts of high frequency sharp sinus tone, and tantalum will explode after 10 seconds :)...inner inductance or reactans, dont blame tantalums, blame purpose and conditions.