Reply 20 of 23, by Trashbytes
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Tiido wrote on 2024-04-06, 10:21:I have been trying to find info about this loss of polarity in tantalum over time and my search yields nothing, I'm most curious about it...
But what I did find is that there are filaments growing inside tantalums which can result in catastrophic failures, although in many cases they break down without damage according to a NASA study about failure modes in some types of tantalum capacitors.
I dont understand it myself its only from what I have read from anecdotes around the net, whether they are true or not I dont know, I guess an electrical engineer would be able to explain it better. Perhaps its less of a loss and more it gets shorted internally perhaps by said filaments that allows current to flow in a reverse direction which causes an explosive failure. We call it forgetting as a way for laymen to understand a complex failure mode, I do know for certain that Tantalums dont like reverse current in the slightest.