Poll: electrolytic capacitors

On a sunny day (Sun, 08 Feb 2015 15:29:13 -0800) it happened John Larkin wrote in :

Indeed, and good RF decoupling.

Reply to
Jan Panteltje
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Tantalums are surprising that way. The inductance is package limited. The leaded part inductance is all in the leads. The surfmount parts are a couple of nH.

The ESR of a 10 or 22 uF surface mount tantalum is just right to stabilize a lot of linear circuits, like LM1117s or from the output of (some) opamps to ground.

--

John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 
picosecond timing   laser drivers and controllers 

jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com 
http://www.highlandtechnology.com
Reply to
John Larkin

Once I figured them out, maybe 30 years ago, I've had no more tantalum failures. But I could say that for lots of different parts, not just tantalum caps.

One trick for a 317-type regulator is to use two tantalums, one at the output and one from the ADJ pin to ground. The second one reduces output noise and also reduces the dV/dT of the output, so you don't have to derate the output cap.

--

John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 
picosecond timing   laser drivers and controllers 

jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com 
http://www.highlandtechnology.com
Reply to
John Larkin

My big problem with tantalum is that they can survive a surprising long time when reversed biased. (Some one stuffs them in the board backwards. I guess this is mostly a problem with thru hole and humans.) I had one fail after years of intermittent use. (35 V tant on a 5 V supply.)

George H.

Reply to
George Herold

There was a reasonably useful discussion of this about 5 years back in EDN (believe it or not). I have a copy at

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs 
Principal Consultant 
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC 
Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics 

160 North State Road #203 
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510 

hobbs at electrooptical dot net 
http://electrooptical.net
Reply to
Phil Hobbs

Sorta. Aluminum capacitors are dog food parts. ;-)

Reply to
krw

On a sunny day (Mon, 9 Feb 2015 13:44:33 -0800 (PST)) it happened George Herold wrote in :

Maybe because for some reason unknown to me the tants have a '_' sign where the + is supposed to be, and normal electrolytic caps a '_' sign where the - is supposed to be?

Yes I once fell for it. Nothing to do with through hole though.

I had one fail after years of intermittent use. (35 V tant on a

I have replaced tons of electrolytics in TV sets. Not shorted, but usually high impedance or high inductance (foil came lose). So the failure mode is less spectacular. The result is the same: It does not work.

Reply to
Jan Panteltje

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