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I had a spectacular failure of a "new old stock" tantalum cap on a ZFDC board a few weeks ago - burned about 3" of tracing right off of the board. Typically I'll test a cap for leakage at rated voltage before using, but I got lazy that night. My understanding is that elevated ESR is only one failure mode in Tantalum caps, I found this article which puts the failures in some perspective (although it focuses more on "modern" tantalum capacitors). http://www.kemet.com/Lists/TechnicalArticles/Attachments/199/2014%20EDFA%20Tantalum%20Cap%20Failure%20Analysis%20Review%20by%20Javaid%20Qazi.pdf - Gary |