Bust a Cap - Exploding Capacitors with SparkFun

[@cyberbadger]

If you are hobbyist, stay away from tantalum capacitors. However, all your smart phones, tablets are full of them because they are energy dense and light weight if you know what you are doing. Unfortunately tantalum is a conflict mineral that is rare and likely people died in Africa for it to end up in your smart phone/tablet. Electrolytic capacitors also have there faults too, they fail over time as the electrolytic dries out. Ceramics are nice, but they just don't have the energy density.

[@chrisbutler2502]

Hi, I just repaired a pcb that had a short on the 5v power rail to ground. The culprits were 2x +-4.6uf smd 805 ceramic capacitors that had 0.1 and 0.3 ohm shorts. No visible sign of damage on them.

[@untitled2792]

3:33 when you about to walk across the room but realize he's recording

[@CliveChamberlain946]

Ha! At 1:45 he measures his own body resistance! I sure hope he's learned a bit more since recording this..

[@WurstPeterl]

Cliff Matthews He’s got a lab coat with the pen protection thing on. This guy is clearly an expert.

[@LargestClassifieds]

This is highly educational. I couldn't help but thinking of Dr Emmet Brown "Doc" from Back to Future, while watching this guy experimenting on ceramic, tantalum, and electrolytic capacitors.

[@zelon88]

Thank you! This was both fun and educational. I've got a small electronics project that involves a mobile battery powered Raspberry Pi (Screen included). I eventually want to upgrade to a Banana Pi and a touch screen, but for now I'm just happy it works. Anyway, I've got a battery setup currently that has two 5V USB batteries for the RPI and a separate 8.4v screen pack. It has a runtime of about 4.5 hours in a small (But slow and heavy) package. It also has trouble starting the 2.5' HDD attached to it. I've worked out a board that isn't finished yet, but will run two rails at 5V to power the Pi (One regulated from 10V series and one at 2x 5V paralell), and one at 10V rail to power the screen off just two battery. It will also have an auto-charge relay that (When plugged into a 110V outlet) will charge the twin 5V batteries automatically, all without losing powe during transitions, USB attachments, or WiFi or HDD enablement. I've been progressing and revising my designs on this custom power supply/charger board for about 6 months now. I've burned through three Radioshack PCB's and a whole bag of caps and diodes, but I've managed to reuse my relay and my regulators. The best part is that the whole thing can be charged off of 1x or 2x USB ports, a 90w laptop charger, or a 5v 2A DC power supply I have. This video helped give me insight into some trouble I've been having. Thank you for that! I'm heading to Radioshack tomorrow to find some components and button this project up. Hopefully within 2 years I'll have a custom handmade-aluminum touchscreen laptop that's only 8" wide and 1" thick. All thanks to your videos. I subscribed BTW.

[@NicholasFaustDoty]

Lol at guy around 3:32, he was like oh sh*t they are filiming.

[@18436Melissa]

3:32 noob

[@PaulJosephdeWerk]

Where can I buy a can of magic smoke so I can fix my broken electrolytic capacitors?

[@isashach]

Tantalums are not only dangerous, but they are also made from conflict minerals. Lots of controversy stirring around them from this aspect too.

[@nicksterspad]

I will absolutely never lot love the term "Magic Smoke". I've also heard it called "the genie". Well, I know for sure one of my three wishes is that I wired my prototype correctly in the first place.

[@billthekid1982]

Thanks for sharing! Also your site is great with noob-friendly explanations!

[@RyanBrooksInnovator]

This was great. Thanks Shawn and Sparkfun!

[@BEAR-wp6nf]

I use tantalum caps where ever I can and love them. Much lower ESR than electrolytic and only explode like in the video when there's sufficient current available to do so. I always use at least a 10 mfd at the input & output of regulators and often a few more at stratigic places across Vcc and other voltage supply lines. This is good for not only filtering noise but I've seen tantalum caps many times save a circuit when reverse voltage was applied from power sources capable of only supplying a few amps as the tant's become a short circuit and basically limit the reversed voltage other components see to zero.

[@rishabhlohiya2200]

Maaaan...you cleared the concept

[@Dr_Mario2007]

At least this is also exactly why the newer Tantalum capacitors now have the built-in fuses - they always die short-circuited. They also are capable of destroying your project because of explosive energy of Tantalum oxides, at least denting the PCBs (printed circuit boards).

[@beatrix2745]

Educational and funny. Thanks for the video!

[@DaleSchultz-mixmox]

nice and informative, but why pollute the thing with background music? Need to decouple that noise!

[@alyssonrowan6835]

@Shawn (the insane Destructive Testing Engineer) - how about another of these featuring failure modes for polystyrene, mylar and polycarbonate caps, since some of us still use them (a lot).

[@gene7511]

Where can I grab those flexible blue alligator clip stand thingies?

[@boldizsarbalog6206]

They are Flexible Coolant Pipes. Google it! (www.sparkfun.com/products/12783)

[@steveboxsell6272]

You can buy packs of alligator leads at jaycar

[@claytonbenignus4688]

I plan to teach some Electrical Safety in the near future, hence this video is of interest to me. As this video appears t have it, if the applied voltage exceeds the voltage rating, Kaboom! Is that all there is to it? I'd like to see some of the Math of a Capacitor Explosion. Resistors are easy enough. If I use a 1 Ohm 0.125 Watt Carbon Resistor with a 9 Volt Battery, since 1*9^2 = 81 > 0.125, I can be reasonably certain of starting a fire. What am I missing?

[@IIGrayfoxII]

Using 2 1000uF or 10mF wired in parallel for a total of 20000uF or 20mF they are rated for 40v and they are used in a car which is 14v, More than safe, but if i got the wires wrong, alot of smoke.

[@steveboxsell6272]

What did the blown tantalum smell like

[@pekkahollola7646]

Is the sound how loud dB when capacitors pop ? Can you measure with phone app or such device ?

[@18436Melissa]

I blew up a 10v capacitor 470uF and I was suportting 24v to that 10v capaitor. I said I wouldn't blow it but it did already

[@knucklecorn]

Wow, Looks like Sparkfun isn't all bearded hippies and scarf clad hipsters after all...

[@hassanul96]

Wow i didn't know tantalum is that rare

[@spokehedz]

Missed a great opportunity to mess with Shawn though...

[@Graham_Wideman]

1:13 I'm pretty sure that tantalum cap failed open circuit. Contrary to 3:18.

[@thenerdyouknowabout]

Bow ties ARE cool!

[@thebeststooge]

Some of the older electrolytic caps didn't have the scoring and when they blew they literally blew up and it could kill in rare circumstances so we now have these types but I still see some from China not scored...YEOW.

[@alyssonrowan6835]

+legalizeshemp420 Not fun - but quite a few have (hidden) failure vents in the rubber seal

[@thebeststooge]

Alysson Rowan True but in the old days they simply blew up inside your tv and had such force it blew a hole in the side of your set and could be lethal. Now I have an electronics board made 10 years ago and the one cap that did not have a vent blew its silver piece off. Was a motherboard so I was very surprised at that until I saw "Made in China" on the tube part of the remaining cap. I suppose that was venting in a way as opposed to simply blowing up like a bomb in those old tvs.

[@alyssonrowan6835]

+legalizeshemp420 Yups - we used to find non-polarised electrolytics did that a lot in the back of video terminals. Ine used to literally fill the whole case with aluminium confetti and beige fluff (the absorbant paper separator) - with the can usually wedged somewhere in the yoke assembly. It took 2 minutes to replace the cap, and half an hour to get the debris out of the case. The very old elecrolytics had a proper vent (little rubber ball) in the cap. Quite often, even the cheapo scored caps will fail by losing their cans - and woe betide anyone who needs to use a heat gun to replace components nearby - I had 4 go at once when I was replacing a MAX3232 on one mobo - good reason to wear a face shield when doing re-working boards. I have had a couple of quality caps go ballistic recently - but at least that was under exceptional circumstances.

[@thebeststooge]

Alysson Rowan YES, that is exactly what I meant and I still have the image of the 1970's TV with the plastic (wood grained of course) side blown out because a cap just blew up like a bomb. Thanks to the 1970's and the caps doing it enough they started to have nice vent holes in them so they spew their guts instead of blowing up. I have an old ASUS mobo with those old faulty caps that was in all the headlines in the early 2000's and even though it sat in my bedroom unused they vented themselves. No heat or even being plugged in as I had used it 6 months previously then plugged it in and bios went wonky and I knew from experience what was probably the issue and 3 caps vented and 1 had blown its white guts out but was dry so had done it just sitting there unplugged. I really hate Electrolytic caps but they now make dry ones from Japan and those are nice (more expensive mobos use those now).

[@alyssonrowan6835]

+legalizeshemp420 My big image is of a 19" rack cabinet with the back panel blown out after a lightning strike surged the mains supply, and detonated the 2500W PSU at the bottom. 10,000 uF, 25V caps were enormous back then - and I used the least damaged (empty) can of the 6 for years as a pen holder on my desk. The cabinet had to be replaced since the explosion buckled the steel frame. Happily, the damage to the other equipment that was killed at the same time was more contained. I had several desktop power supplies that died while powered down over the summer - which had been fitted with the same make of cap as the ASUS mobos. Not fun, but easily fixed with an order of caps from a certain electronic supplier.

[@brunoip]

Best video ever!

[@Plasma.Prince]

Haha I did this in one of my videos, it was fun.

[@jmsssx]

Is it dangerous If it is Supercapacitor.

[@discoHR]

00:36 Weird, I've seen too many shorted MLCCs.

[@KaustavMajumder]

Subscribed!

[@hassanul96]

Anyone notice that the sound is out of sync with video?

[@cabbage5114]

Me who likes fire: HEHEHEHE I don't think im gonna live very long

[@NerdNordic]

Try not to use Tantalum caps. They are like blood diamonds. "Blood capacitors" I guess...

[@Rainbient]

Clark Kent?

[@Presidian123]

So, if the ceramic capacitor breaks down, it will still filtering high voltaje, right?

[@Keith_Ward]

Should have used an AC supply ... much more dramatic

[@jamiekosky6580]

sweet awesome :)

[@imrlyrlybadatcomingupwithn5730]

3:58 fire bad haotel translvania

[@imrlyrlybadatcomingupwithn5730]

hotel

[@MrShinyFish]

can't tell if trolling or stupid...

[@edsonbatistadasilva5532]

Só entendo em portugues

[@souslicer]

dafuq