How high do tantalum capacitor values go ?

Wet slug or dry?

I've designed in wet slug tantalum capacitors once. I can't remember the value, but if they weren't 1000uF they were 470uF. Two in parallel, not because that was the biggest available, but we had to use two to meet board height constraints.

Of course, wet-slug tantalums are kind of a high-rel, mil, or aerospace thing.

Check DigiKey and Mouser for available values of regular tantalums. You probably need to go to a less retail place like Arrow to find wet-slug tants (and they'll be spendy, but they'll work at 20,000 feet).

Given enough reverse voltage/current I think you can launch pieces of 'em about 10 feet. :^)

(Sorry feeling snarky.)

George H.

On a sunny day (Fri, 8 Nov 2013 06:19:09 -0800 (PST)) it happened George Herold wrote in :

NASA get them much higher.

Ya, I though the size was limited to make the explosions smaller. ;-) Mikek

Nope.

Just wanted to point out that they exist. I never used one and most likely never will since my experience with tantalum caps in general has been less than great.

I had one whack me in the forehead. Fortunately I had my magni-visors on. ...Jim Thompson

I think largest I've seen is 220uF (6.3V or 10V rated) inside an oldish laptop (~2000). Aluminum polymer are also very popular these days (I have a dead video card from 2006 with them, plus tants, plus discretes down to... 0402, maybe 0201, I forget).

Large values are essentially useless anyway as the power supply is poorly made if it can't supply power fast enough to compensate.

Tim

-- Seven Transistor Labs Electrical Engineering Consultation Website:

The $460 tantalum cap:

Must go off like an M80 when it fails.

of 'em about 10 feet. :^)

;-)

-ND/1587381

It seems to be a wet slug type, those are more like pistols when they "go off". 10,000 uF, wow. That would be really frightening in a SMT class device.

?-)