I've started a new thread with a partial respnse to your comments Subject:
Tantalums and test eqpt
73
hank wd5jfr
"Tom Bruhns" wrote in message
...
"Henry Kolesnik" wrote in message
...
Over the last few years I've acquired quite a few consumer electronincs
pcbs
including TVs, VCRs, stereos, etc, so when I discovered that I needed a
tantalum to repair some test equipment I was going to salvage a
tantalum. I
couldn't find one anywhere, so I assume they're too expensive or too
unrelaible for high end consumer electronics. A couple of the boards
were
from my personal stuff purchased new. One example is a MGA Mitsubishi
rear
projection TV that operated flawlessly for nearly 20 years of daily use.
Most of my test equipment comes from hamfests and is surplus after
becoming
obsolete and non-operative in less than 20 years. That leads me to
wonder
what the real story is behind tantalum capacitors. What do the experts
have
to say?
tnx
hank wd5jfr

Didn't see anyone else mention that aluminum electrolytics don't work
well when cold, but tantalums keep working fine.

Your test equipment probably became "obsolete" because the things
being tested were newer and more sophisticated than the equipment was
designed for, and therefore it was no longer needed. Technology moves
along rather swiftly these days. If all analog TV signals were
discontinued with only digital available, your old rear projection TV
would also be obsolete. Test equipment is commonly much more
sophisticated than consumer...drifts that are practically unnoticable
in consumer electronics would be intolerable in test equipment. But
even so, I have plenty of test equipment that's 20+ years old that
still works fine. I've had to repair (or toss) a higher percentage of
my consumer electronics than of my test equipment, for sure.
"Discman" type CD players seem to have an especially short life, but
I've had tape recorders, TVs and at least one stereo amplifier fail as
well.

Cheers,
Tom