Smoke on the Horizon... oh s**t!

From: Tom Jennings <tomj_at_wps.com>
Date: Tue Feb 17 16:59:06 2004

Big, huge, gargantuan, monster arrays of dipped silver mica caps?

Seriously, I think you just have to change them often, eg. decadely.
(That's a perfectly cromulent word.)

I think spacecraft programmers know about this sort of thing, but you
could probably design a power supply that presupposed possible failures
like this, but basically no one but us lunatics care about electronic
objects lasting more than five, never mind 10 or 20 years.

tomj




On Mon, 2004-02-16 at 12:39, Michael Sokolov wrote:
> So here is my question then: if not tantalum, then what?
>
> I've always been told that aluminum electrolytic caps were cheap stuff that
> doesn't last and that tantalum caps are much better and (that was the claim)
> eternal. So I guess this is wrong. What is the truth then? Is it the other
> way around? Or are they both bad? And why are so many people, including on
> this list, saying "aluminum electrolytics are cheap crap, use tantalum"?
>
> And what are the *good* caps to use?
>
> MS
Received on Tue Feb 17 2004 - 16:59:06 GMT