The only place I've ever seen a wet tantalum leak is in the 184 TMG; fortunately, corrosion was limited to the capacitor leads themselves.? There must be environmental factors at work, because some people see a lot of wet Ta failures.? It's probably high ambient temperatures.?
-Dave
From: Craig Sawyers <c.sawyers@...>
To:
[email protected] Sent: Tuesday, July 17, 2018 10:47 PM
Subject: Re: [TekScopes] tants new vs old
The only type you have to be concerned about are bead tantalum capacitors used for local power supply
rail decoupling. Colour is unimportant.
They will be 6V rating on 5V rails and 16V rating on 15V rails. And bewilderingly 50V rating on 50V
rails. They randomly fail as a dead short. Replace? them with low ESR aluminium electrolytic with
three times the capacitance. That is exactly what Tek did in later serial numbers.
Anywhere else - as coupling capacitors between stages for example - are generally just fine.
I have never personally seen a wet tantalum leak. Which is just as well because replacements cost a
king's ransom.
Craig
Subject: [TekScopes] tants new vs old
I am guessing that this subject has been hashed over a number of times but as I am fairly new here i
will ask away.
