Ah yes. Are you referring to the smoke that powers telecom gear? (ie, the gear works until you see smoke pouring out of the top.) I had imagined this to be distributed throughout the NE... As for trolling, well, ahem. I've NEVER done that before... -TD
From: Thomas Shaddack <shaddack@ns.arachne.cz> To: Tyler Durden <camera_lumina@hotmail.com> CC: mv@cdc.gov, cypherpunks@al-qaeda.net Subject: Re: vacuum-safe laptops ? Date: Sun, 18 Jul 2004 01:13:13 +0200 (CEST)
On Sat, 17 Jul 2004, Tyler Durden wrote:
Sorry to need educating once again, but I had assumed can-shaped capacitors were gone from laptops in lieu of surface mount. Anyone know? (I don't own a laptop.)
The can caps can be surface-mounted as well. The leads then look different, but the inside is still the same: a metal can with etched aluminum strips and an insulator soaked with electrolyte. The magic smoke they are filled with also has the same color and smell as their non-SMD predecessors.
See also http://www.elna.co.jp/en/ct/c_al01.htm for brief description of liquid-electrolyte aluminum capacitors.
There are also some more modern constructions, where the electrolyte is solid-state. (The tantalum capacitors, which are more common in SMD form than the aluminum ones, use MnO2 as electrolyte and Ta2O5 as insulator. The added advantage here is that during a breakdown, the MnO2 layer locally overheats and is converted to less conductive Mn2O3, which causes the breakdown to "heal". Similar mechanism is used in capacitors with solid-state plastic electrolyte.)
I suppose the solid-state caps could be much more reliable in the conditions of rapid pressure changes, if they won't have moisture or air trapped inside their construction.
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