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Noise in electrolytic capacitors

The biggest tantalums I have ever encountered were the size of a thimble. Their (frequent) explosions set off some nice and dazzling greenish-orange clouds but the bang was quite modest. This one was a serious beker type electrolytic cap, about 8cm long and maybe 4cm diameter. Its aluminum tube including innards decided to become a spacecraft. Went off like a champagne cork. I could have lost an eye in that incident, scary.

:-)

I was too shaken to take a photo back then. Plus after the loud bang my dad came running down the stairs, expressed some rather immediate ractions of disgust and that it should be fixed, and pronto. Then, he saw the smoldering hole in the carpet ...

The only camera I had was a 6cm*6cm children's camera but even B&W film was very expensive and I spent all my money on electronics. I wouldn't have dared to ask dad for his Agfa 35mm camera at that moment. In hindsight I understand his reaction. Back in the 60's it was financially hard to build a house when your family had lots of kids and he didn't want to see his dream burn down just because I had to have the biggest honking amplifier in town.

For US readers: Homes in Germany have concrete ceilings (I wish they also did here). There is a roughly 1/2" thick layer of gypsum-based plaster applied to that ceiling which is either used as the base to apply wallpaper or like in our case it was painted.

--
Regards, Joerg

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Joerg
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an

beat

tely

Tantalum meltdowns are about the nastiest electronics failure, 2nd only to lithium ion battery explosions. The deal with tantalum is it shoots out and then sticks like napalm. If it just went poof and vaporized, that might be acceptable, but the flying material is another story.

Reply to
miso

And the stinkiest is a selenium rectifier.

Ed

Reply to
ehsjr

Cool - this thread is turning into a guide to identifying components from how they explode. This could be a valuable chapter in any electronics textbook. To summarise so far:

Following the teasing I got about running electrolytics at 2 times their rated voltage, when I meant to write half voltage, I then used a transformer with the wrong turns ratio and put a 2.5 times overvoltage on a couple of small OS-CONs. I can report they failed disappointingly quietly, and apparently short-circuit: I only knew there was a problem because the output collapsed to 2V. I can't help feeling that modern components lack some of the 'character' of old fashioned electronics.

Reply to
Nemo

If you want more sparkle try "modern" LDO regulators. For no apparent reason they can go into up-chuck mode, become hot ... *POOF* ... nice little crater.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

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Use another domain or send PM.
Reply to
Joerg

He who buys such three-legged critters should not be surprised when they fall over ;-)

There's a variant of the LP2950 that brings out several internal nodes which, IIUIC, should allow lead compensation, and those failures due to low ESR caps should go away. ...Jim Thompson

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Reply to
Jim Thompson

Many moons ago I was staring at the top of this electrolytic cap that had a solder safety vent on top. It was bulging and running hot. Suddenly the vent blew and a volcano of hot electrolyte sprayed directly in my face. Luckily I was wearing glasses so I escaped wit minor burns but got to keep my eyesight.

-- Boris

Reply to
Boris Mohar

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