Hey.
I've been working on some commercial projects recently - that's why I haven't had a chance
to post any videos, but something unusual happened on this one.
Uuh.
Working on a ... well, actually I can't really tell you what it does.
But, umm.
It required some tantalum caps.
And that's really the focus of this right here.
And umm this right here is a tantalum cap.
Of course, this one is a bad tantalum cap.
See how it's black.
And, this one was actually faring better than the other one.
The other one literally exploded and sent flying shrapnel everywhere including one that
hit my eyelid.
Thankfully, I had my safety squints on.
Not messin' around anymore.
These are Chinese tantalum capacitors.
And they are specified very clearly.
These ones are specified to be.
Let's see here.
220 uF. 16V Tantalum caps.
And either that's a lie or something's backward or something.
Because the digikey tantalum caps work perfectly and these don't.
So, I guess I'm just gonna find out if I got really unlucky with the first two, if they
were just the only two bad ones in the bunch or if you know, more of these explode.
I'm kinda curious here.
Just hope I didn't get super unlucky with those two.
Cause that would be depressing.
Now, the reason I tried these Chinese caps is because they were almost ten times cheaper
than the digikey counterparts.
Ok, gonna start with the power supply off and I'm going to just hook this up.
But one thing if you are ever going to use a tantalum cap you should be careful of is
you should make sure that you have the right side positive.
For some reason the line indicates positive on these tantalum caps.
Follow that electrode.
Makes me nervous.
I'm gonna crank this to 12 volts and see if it explodes.
*ppsttaaaa* Ok.
So that uuh exploded and shorted, probably a little bit above 12.
You can see it is glowing red hot.
Well not anymore, but that was a little bit disturbing.
Now, mind you these are fresh.
They have never been soldered.
They are straight from aliexpress.
Thought I was gonna get a super deal on them.
Well, most of the time I do.
But did not work out for the best this time.
Just turn it on.
Ok.
Puttin some voltage in and I'm gonna stop this around 12V and I'm not gonna keep going.
Ugh makes me so nervous.
Maybe they just marked them backwards.
Wait I should not put my face that close.
The other thing is I am worried these electrodes might have gotten crud on them so I'm going
to put fresh ones on.
Plug it in.
Turnin it up.
Woah.
It is conducting real hard.
It was just the elctode.
It's got the polarity right it's just a terrible cap.
So, no.
These are definitely marked right with plus and minus.
They're just not rated for 16 volts.
Bummer.
Let's blow another one up for good measure.
Ugh.
Well, seven volts is not gonna do it.
*POP* Woah.
OK.
Wooh.
Let's see what voltage was that when it finally blew?
15 Volts.
Did not even make the rated voltage.
Let's record at 60 FPS.
Let's see what one of these 470uF tantalum caps does.
That is terrifying.
Ten...
Eleven.
*POP* 13 Volts.
One more for good measure.
One two three four.
Thirteen Fourteen.
Fifteen.
It's probably not connected.
Probably have some crud on my tips here.
Let's try that again.
Eight.
Nine.
Ten.
Fifteen.
Sixteen.
I think it's withstanding 16 volts.
Hey.
Check that out.
This one actually survived.
It's slowly ramping down.
So, at least one of these capacitors may be ok at the rated voltage.
That does not instill confidence.
So, now I'm gonna try it with this.
A 100uF rated at 16V.
Let's see if this one explodes.
Actually all I need for this project is a bunch of 100uF's.
So, if it works, I'm set.
The maximum voltage this should see is about 15 volts.
Hookin' it up.
*POP* Wooh.
*POOOOPPPPP*.
*Low wooh sound*.
Sparks went flyin.
That was more than sparks.
Well, that's a failure.
You might be thinking "Charles, of course this was gonna happen.
You just bought parts from who knows where and totally embedded in all of that and that's
why you should always buy parts from known providers.
And that's only kinda half true.
A lot of times the price difference really does make up for the loss of reliability and
and, well, predictability.
The one thing it does show is that on any kinda part that is prone to explosions, you
probably should check to make sure that it is the right thing.