[sdiy] Tantalum alternatives for re-capping?

[Mike Bryant]

"You can turn any SMD part into through-hole by using two pieces of solid wire and some heat shrink."

Which if you take a lot of thru-hole passive components apart nowadays you'll find that is exactly what they are, only they use resin rather than heat-shrink.

________________________________
From: Synth-diy <synth-diy-bounces at synth-diy.org> on behalf of cheater cheater via Synth-diy <synth-diy at synth-diy.org>
Sent: 04 January 2026 23:28
To: Colin Hinz <music-lists at primus.ca>
Cc: SYNTH DIY <synth-diy at synth-diy.org>
Subject: Re: [sdiy] Tantalum alternatives for re-capping?

You can turn any SMD part into through-hole by using two pieces of
solid wire and some heat shrink.

Personally, for simplicity, I suggest using a modern, high quality,
through-hole electrolytic. They'll have better behavior both for audio
and for rails than tantalum caps while remaining a similar size.

For DC blocking caps I suggest MKT capacitors.

On Fri, Jan 2, 2026 at 8:46 PM Colin Hinz via Synth-diy
<synth-diy at synth-diy.org> wrote:
>
> Hello all,
>
> Slightly off-topic, but I am re-capping an old (circa 1977) MXR Digital
> Delay and am wondering about the numerous small tantalum capacitors that
> are in this unit. Should I leave them be? Replace them with new solid
> tantalum parts? Replace them with some other technology?
>
> Unfortunately the replacements need to be through-hole parts, which
> rules out some of the whizz-bang technologies touted as tantalum
> replacements, such as niobium oxide.
>
> Thoughts?
>
> - Colin
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