tantalum capacitors

[etack]

Thanks Phil

I'll be looking forwards to the pics because I've been missing a trick here and I'm more than willing to learn.

It would be awful to think that I (or anyone else) was sending off "tantalum" when in fact it was Palladium.

Through hole MLCC have been talked about quite a lot. The returns are less due to the extra weight of the leads and epoxy

Eric

 

[necromancer]

a photo of some Ta caps



edit: added the word "some"

The blue one in the center is not a Ta cap. It has a Cu ferrite core.

Eric

i think i ID'ed that one from a datasheet, colour / dots = Ta. i will look to see if i have that info saved

 

[g_axelsson]

As has been said before...

Test!

Just cut it open and you will see what it's made of. You will see directly if it is a ceramic capacitor, a tantalum or an aluminum foil type.

Göran

 

[necromancer]

i have tried some, i have trouble identifying some of the metals in there raw form


and i dont have the data sheet for the above Ta SMD, i may have made a mistake trying to ID it by colour / dots
i will see if i still have it stored & smash it open

 

[philddreamer]

These are a few.

Like Goran suggested, test them to make sure.

Phil

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks guys. Always good to learn something!

 

[g_axelsson]

It should be quite obvious when you cut them open...

1. Easiest, aluminum foil types (could contain silver in older components but mostly contains no value)
Cut it open and you will see the thin aluminum foils with an isolator in between.

2. MLCC are ceramic and breaks easily. Mostly brown to dark brown. When you cut them you end up with several smaller fragments and powder. If you look closely you can actually see the layering in the ceramics, thin streaks that goes in the same direction, often parallell with the largest surface area.

3. Tantalum capacitors are made from a porous metallic tantalum slug and doesn't break so easily. When you first cut an epoxy encased open you often just break off the epoxy and you can see the black tantalum slug. If you cut the slug in half it only breaks in two pieces and looks like coal straight through.

If you find coiled copper wires inside it wasn't a capacitor at all, it was an inductor.

Tantalum capacitors are polarized, if you connect them the wrong way they can burn, so there is always some markings to tell you which is positive and negative lead. Either from the form of the capsule or by writings on the body. Oftens there are markings on the PCB too, giving you hints about what could be a tantalum capacitor.
Not all polarized capacitors are tantalum though, aluminum electrolytes are also polarized and they are more common than tantalum capacitors.

Göran

 

[Smack]

Eric, I've got some ready to sell if you want them, getting a weight, 7.35lbs, email sent.

 

[DarkspARCS]

Thanks for posting all this info fellas, I'll be on the lookout for Tantulum too now

 

[uciocciucorsu]

Hi,

could you tell me wether those are TA cap or not ?

Thanks,

Olivier

 

[shmandi]

No, no, yes

 

[etack]

correct

no
no
yes
Eric

 

[g_opolis]

I wish I knew about you before I sent my caps to Florida and was

bent over badly. All nice until they got ahold of my stuff, then they shuffled the numbers bad. Too bad, I saved those for about 8years. Almost all from boards from the 60's and 70's, i
A few from the 80s.

 

[anachronism]

Could a tantalum Guru please confirm these for me?

Any other tips about the materials on here would of course be greatly appreciated 8) 8)

Jon

 

[jimdoc]

I think the ones with the one red end may be tantalum. Clip one off and see how heavy it seems. Tantalum caps are usually very identifiable from their weight. Other caps feel empty compared to them.

 

[g_axelsson]

I agree, the electrolytic capacitors are probably silver and tantalum capacitors. Then there is the connectors (D-sub) which are fully plated gold with a decent thickness. The metal canned transistors are probably also a good source for gold.

The rest of the board are probably just low grade.

Göran

 

[sena]

These boards are mostly 1980s avionics
The second picture has silver capacitor , the shell of the caps are solid silver , these are stuffed with green colour one end

 

[johnny309]

You all miss the welding spot on each board is gold bearing in it( obviously some dissolved in solder...solder that may contain indium ....)....just because them are painted in different colors.

All the capacitor s in those boards are Ta.

As for the year of manufacturing......is written on the DB25 connectors.......if Jon want to share that information with us

 

[Metif62]

Hi, do you buy these items? https://www.instagram.com/p/BzsS3ztlrQx/

 

[etack]

Im not sure what I can buy from Iran. However from other countries yes.

Eric