Different Types of Capacitor Mounting

[willawake]

There are several different types of capacitor mounting configurations and also capacitor types. The most common type for motherboard applications is radial lead/radial wire ended.

Aluminium Electrolytic Capacitors - Radial Lead



An example : Panasonic FC capacitors which are radial lead. This means that they have two leads + and - coming out of the capacitor on the same end. The negative lead is the shorter one and also indicated by the stripe down the side of the capacitor which also shows a - symbol, repeated along the length of the capacitor. The photo shows capacitors as you would receive them new with the full length of leads that you can cut to size. These capacitors are Aluminium Electrolytic which means that there is probably two layers of aluminium foil which are separated by paper that is impregrated with an electrolyte gel. The layers are then wound and enclosed in an aluminium or plastic tube. You can clearly see in the photo the capacitor bungs at the bottom of the capacitor. On good capacitors like the Panasonic FC they are made of EPT (Ethylene Propylene Rubber) which is a synthetic material. On the bad capacitors for cost reasons, natural rubber is used. This gets hard with age and the failure of the electrolyte can bust the bung out of the bottom of the cheap caps, leaking electrolyte on your nice smd components.

Axial Lead

This means that one lead is at each end of the capacitor.

Surface Mount Chip Type Capacitors



Surface mount chip capacitors on an Asus video card. See their black surface mount seats which are at the bottom of each cap. The black mark on the silver top of the cap indicates the negative lead. The seat is also square at the negative side. It is not clearly apparent from the markings, who manufactured these caps. Why would they use these surface mount chip capacitors instead of normal radial lead capacitors? Well it is easier to place and solder them to the board with machines.

[willawake]

Surface Mount Capacitors

Very small components which are soldered to one side of the board, either at the front or the back.



The above image shows the ceramic smd capacitors positions with the numbers preceded with CB or C. The resistors position numbers are preceded with R.

[willawake]

Surface Mount Tantalum Capacitors



As indicated by the orange arrows. They come in case sizes A,B,C,D,E. The small ones in the photograph are B and the larger one is D. The bar on the cap indicates the POSITIVE side. These were used in motherboards, graphics cards, lan cards etc. I did not see them used after geforce1 though.

[willawake]

need help with this thread guys....

[TheInfamousJerry]

Free-Standing Capacitors



These are very popular among AMD users. These suckers will power up to an Athlon XP 2400! Installation is simple, bolt the capacitor to the side of your case, preferrably with a U-bracket and weld the leads to the most convenient and accessable area!

Note: Don't do this! This post was merely a joke! Neither me nor the board moderator nor owner should be held responsible if you wire a huge capacitor to your board, rendering it(and probably yourself) inoperable!

I helped!

[kc8adu]

all jokes aside those large screw terminal types are commonly called computer grade.
my imsai 8080 has 2 of them.
the smaller ones in the center are snap ins.
used in some pc psu.

Originally Posted by TheInfamousJerry

Free-Standing Capacitors



These are very popular among AMD users. These suckers will power up to an Athlon XP 2400! Installation is simple, bolt the capacitor to the side of your case, preferrably with a U-bracket and weld the leads to the most convenient and accessable area!

Note: Don't do this! This post was merely a joke! Neither me nor the board moderator nor owner should be held responsible if you wire a huge capacitor to your board, rendering it(and probably yourself) inoperable!

I helped!

[arneson]

Why the disclaimer saying not to do this?
It's not merely a joke.
I have lined the inside of my case with these big boys and she's stable.
But it takes an hour for the power light to go off.

[PeteS in CA]

One of the nicknames for a computer grade types is a "beer can" (though some are more the size of a V8 juice can. Some larger snap-ins have an extra terminal or two to improve mechanical stability.

[OldeCrow]

if you don't want to power your computer with them they are fun at parties too

[triplelatte]

I have something close to that in the trunk of my car. I use them to store power for my amps so when the bass hits my light don't dim. the brand is lightning caps and they pack a punch to them. a friend of mine damn near blew his hand off messing with his .

[Gendo Ikari]

Originally Posted by willawake

Surface Mount Tantalum Capacitors



As indicated by the orange arrows. They come in case sizes A,B,C,D,E. The small ones in the photograph are B and the larger one is D. The bar on the cap indicates the POSITIVE side. These were used in motherboards, graphics cards, lan cards etc. I did not see them used after geforce1 though.

I accidentally knocked one of these off an old ISA 10Mb network card I got from a guy. I was wondering what the heck it was. At least I can maybe replace it now if I really want too.

[gonzo0815]

Tantalum capacitors.

[Moopy]

I'm new here and was looking for a nice spot for my first post and stumbled across this thread of knowledge. I've seen tons of these types of capacitors but I never knew their technical names. Now I just need to learn about diodes.

[jentoris]

that yellow capacitor is the smaller size of caps and give you the most stabel power output than the other caps pictured, and also it's more expensive.