# How small do you go? Cherry picking MLCC's



## Grelko (Mar 30, 2018)

These things get so tiny :lol: 

Let's say the penny on the left is number 1, and the grain of salt on the right is number 10.

I usually wont pick off anything smaller than number 7. "1 mm"

I've seen down to number 8 on circuit boards, but number 9 is the smallest I've ever seen. It's off a cellphone board.


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## shmandi (Mar 30, 2018)

No. 2 and 3 are really joy to pick. 
No. 9 weights probably less than 1mg.
No. 1 I belive is tantalum.


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## Grelko (Mar 30, 2018)

shmandi said:


> No. 2 and 3 are really joy to pick.
> No. 9 weights probably less than 1mg.
> No. 1 I belive is tantalum.




I'm pretty sure the big red/orange one is tantalum also.

I actually enjoy numbers 4, 5, 6 "brown colored". Anything bigger seems to crumble apart if I'm not careful when using a jewelry screwdriver. But, If they're from an older board, a lot of the time they have too much solder holding them on and just break also.

Edit - spelling


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## g_axelsson (Mar 30, 2018)

Easy enough to check no 1 if it is tantalum or ceramic, just cut it open.

I think it might be ceramic and not tantalum, tantalum would have a polarity marking of some kind and I can't see any such markings.

Göran


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## shmandi (Mar 30, 2018)

g_axelsson said:


> tantalum would have a polarity marking of some kind and I can't see any such markings.


I was looking for that too. Orange ones have tiny pin sticking out of solder pad. It could be on other side not seen on photo.

Larger MLCCs I usually remove with hot air.


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## Grelko (Mar 30, 2018)

g_axelsson said:


> Easy enough to check no 1 if it is tantalum or ceramic, just cut it open.
> 
> I think it might be ceramic and not tantalum, tantalum would have a polarity marking of some kind and I can't see any such markings.
> 
> Göran




It doesn't have any markings, but I've seen similar ones on the forum that were tantalum.

The very center of this one has a tiny black rod going through it. I have 2 others like it, but they are slightly smaller and the one side comes to a point like the solder was pulled. I keep them seperate from the box type "yellow, black etc."

For the smaller MLCC's, I've seen many colors. Brown, grey, white, pink, green, purple, etc. If they're black, they're not a capacitor.

I've broken some apart before, the capacitors area bit harder to crush and show a grey powder on my pliers, and the black boxes crush brown/red like a rust color. Sometimes they even have a tiny copper winding inside.

Resistors seem to be black/white, light or dark blue, red or green and normally have numbers on them. Most of the time, they're all white on the back.


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## g_axelsson (Mar 30, 2018)

Grelko said:


> g_axelsson said:
> 
> 
> > Easy enough to check no 1 if it is tantalum or ceramic, just cut it open.
> ...


Tantalum capacitors have a black metallic slug in it, if there is a black rod inside the orange ones than it is a tantalum capacitor.

Multi Layer Ceramic Capacitors are ceramic inside and usually brown. With a loupe or a microscope it's even possible to see the layering of conductors and the barium titanate ceramic.

Anything with copper winding inside is an inductor and have no precious metals.

Göran


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## Tzoax (Mar 30, 2018)

My favorite type of MLCC's are those with 8 leads like in the picture. They are located in a upper left corner of almost any PC motherboard and usually they are pink colored. I don't know if they have better yield than regular MLCC's, but i just love to take them off the board.


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## Grelko (Mar 30, 2018)

Tzoax said:


> My favorite type of MLCC's are those with 8 leads like in the picture. They are located in a upper left corner of almost any PC motherboard and usually they are pink colored. I don't know if they have better yield than regular MLCC's, but i just love to take them off the board.



Those are fun to take off. I'm not sure on the yield either, but they seem a lot harder to find than regular MLCCs. Most of the non-magnetic MLCC's I have are of that type. Some are slightly attracted to a hard drive magnet.


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## Tzoax (Apr 1, 2018)

Smallest (so far) MLCC's are 0.25 mm x 0.125 mm by Murata Manufacturing Co.

https://www.murata.com/about/newsroom/news/application/mobile/2012/0905


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## Grelko (Apr 1, 2018)

Tzoax said:


> Smallest (so far) MLCC's are 0.25 mm x 0.125 mm by Murata Manufacturing Co.



I saw a picture of that the other day while looking up some capacitors. The one I have for number 9 looks to be around 0.75 mm x 0.25 mm.

In couple years, MLCC's will be the size of a gold bonding wire 0.0125 mm. Couple years after that, they'll probably be the size of a red blood cell 0.008 mm. 

Funny thing is, components are getting smaller, but phones are getting bigger again.


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## patnor1011 (Apr 2, 2018)

I used to take them out with screwdriver or blade. Not anymore.
Now I depopulate with heat and use different size screens. Sorting them in this way is much faster than picking them off board one by one. You also get all of them even smallest pieces.


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## Grelko (Apr 2, 2018)

patnor1011 said:


> I used to take them out with screwdriver or blade. Not anymore.
> Now I depopulate with heat and use different size screens. Sorting them in this way is much faster than picking them off board one by one. You also get all of them even smallest pieces.



Normally I just scrape everything off the boards and sort it out later, but I haven't used different size screens.

I've been deciding whether to cherry pick what I want, then send the rest to the scrapyard, or to do the process explained in this thread. http://goldrefiningforum.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=11064&p=108047&hilit=depopulating+acid#p107848

That's why, I made a thread asking if Calcium Hydroxide will remove the green mask from boards.


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