On Mon, 19 Nov 2007 09:37:33 -0800 Jeff Liebermann
wrote in Message id: :


Tantalums are quite different. Exceed the voltage specification and
they catch fire and burn. It's quite impressive. You can accellerate
the process by reversing the voltage across the tantalum. Try it.
Just take a random small tanatalum and put it across a power supply.
First, it starts to get hot. Then it glows red. Finally, it bursts
into flames and spews toxic smoke. It does take a while to break
down. I've had the polarity reversed for perhaps 3 hours before it
flamed out.

Hell, a few or ten years ago we had actually shipped product where the
polarity on the silkscreen was incorrect, causing the tantalum caps to be
installed backwards. Some of the boards ran 24/7 for 3 to 4 months of
operation before catching fire.