[sdiy] Tantalums in general

[John Henson]

Hi All,
back in the days tantalum capacitors had (still have} two redeeming 
features...
Low leakage and very low ESR.
The former is self explanatory and the latter meant it could decouple up to 
fairly high frequencies without a parallel mounted polyester or ceramic.
The end of the tantalum era came when the price of tantalum ore skyrocketed 
following political instability in the worlds only source of suitable ore 
(Zaire IIRC).
Tantalum capacitors are even now horrendously expensive compared to 'lytics.
The loss of tantalum meant rapid research into electrolytes giving us the 
low ESR 'lytics we enjoy today.
If you have a synth, module, whatever, with tants decoupling the power 
rails, remove them and replace with low ESR 'lytics. It could save a gig one 
day.
Tants as the timing elements in envelope generators or LFO's are fine, this 
is the application at which they excel.
Regards
John
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Gil W." <gil_we at yahoo.com>
To: "Samppa Tolvanen" <samppa.tolvanen at gmail.com>
Cc: <synth-diy at dropmix.xs4all.nl>
Sent: Wednesday, June 10, 2009 9:05 PM
Subject: Re: [sdiy] Tantalums in Yamaha CS20M/CS40M


>
> What was the reason they used tanatalums at all, back in the days ?
> The writing on the circuit board, where the tantalum lay, shows the 
> positive mark rather than the negative one as like any other polarized 
> capacitor, meaning they planned dropping tantalums in there at the first 
> place.... Any particular reason ?
>
>
>
> --- On Wed, 6/10/09, Samppa Tolvanen <samppa.tolvanen at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> From: Samppa Tolvanen <samppa.tolvanen at gmail.com>
>> Subject: Re: [sdiy] Tantalums in Yamaha CS20M/CS40M
>> To: "Gil W." <gil_we at yahoo.com>
>> Cc: "synth-diy at dropmix.xs4all.nl" <synth-diy at dropmix.xs4all.nl>
>> Date: Wednesday, June 10, 2009, 10:47 PM
>> On Wed, Jun 10, 2009 at 9:52 PM, Gil
>> W.<gil_we at yahoo.com>
>> wrote:
>> >
>> > Particularly the power supply... There are four
>> 1uf/35v tants in there, can I just drop 1uf electrolytes
>> instead of them ?
>> >
>>
>> I'd say it's more than safe. Electrolytics die, but
>> Tantalums.are.prone to commit a messy suicide.
>>
>> Samppa
>>
>
>
>
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