Re: Jellybean electrolytic capacitors

On Wed, 21 Nov 2007 12:10:20 -0800 (PST), Winfield Hill
<hill@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Nov 21, 2:45 pm, Joerg <notthisjoerg...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

Hey, can you guys include a small picture of a tantalum
turning into a rocket? With that orange-greenish streak
spewing out the bottom and maybe an impressive cloud?

--
Regards, Joerg
http://www.analogconsultants.com/

Can you provide us with a nice photo?

See:
<http://802.11junk.com/jeffl/pics/drivel/Blown Power Supply.jpg>
It's not a flamed out tantalum, but an example of what happens when a
cheapo ATX power supply goes over-voltage. The paper mess was from
two electrolytic capacitors. The charred PBC near the purple
electrolytic is probably what inspired the over-voltage. Incidentally,
literally every board and drive in the computer was also blown.

Incidentally, speaking of tantalums, have you run into any with sky
high ESR? I have. See the description next to the photo of the two
tantalum caps at:
<http://ludens.cl/Electron/esr/esr.html>

My favorite capacitor experiment was (someone) dropping a metal bar
across the terminals of an oil drum capacitor. I forgot the
capacitance, but the voltage rating was at least 10Kv. A bank of
these were used to vaporize a wire to fire off a big Hi-V switch. It
took 1 or 2 days to charge the oil drum capacitor, and a few
milliseconds to temporarily wreck my hearing, spray molten aluminum
slag everywhere, and panic everyone in the building. Sorry, no photos
of the devastation.

There are about 30 assorted videos on YouTube under "exploding
capacitor" and "capacitor bomb".
<http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=exploding+capacitor>
All are electrolytics. No tantalums. Well, time to make an exploding
tantalum video.

This has nothing to do with the discussion, but is kinda interesting.
Exploding a potato with a defibrillator cazapitor:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egOda1dKNKU>
Same thing with apples:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWf-V2-kr9Q>





--
# Jeff Liebermann 150 Felker St #D Santa Cruz CA 95060
# 831-336-2558 jeffl@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
# http://802.11junk.com jeffl@xxxxxxxxxx
# http://www.LearnByDestroying.com AE6KS
.

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