Capacitor Swap List: https://predictabledesigns.com/capacitor-swap-list-yt1

This channel is a goldmine

Not me watching/listening to this while hand soldering 01005 components on iphones 😅

Here's a fun cap story.  Back in 2002 I was designing a Bit Error Rate Tester (BERT) that had to go up to 43 Gbps.  This was achieved by aggregating 17 lanes, each at 2.5 Gbps.  Each lane needed a dedicated PLL to produce its clock from a lower reference frequency.  Each PLL circuit had a low-noise LDO tthat supplied voltage to the VCO, and the LDO data sheet (I think it was Micrel) said to use a 1uF cap at it's output, and I'm pretty sure it said ceramics were OK.  I think I used X7R, and the voltage was very stable.
Anyway, I started noticing my eye patterns suddenly became cloudy for no apparent reason.  It seemed random, until I noticed that it happened reliably when I lightly tapped the side of the chassis with a screw driver.  Long story short, it was piezoelectric effect.  It shifted the supply voltage to the VCO by around 10 microvolts, which pushed its output frequency ever so slightly.  It only took a few microseconds for feedback to correct it, but that's a lot of bit periods at these frequencies, and the phase errors accumulated.  I replaced the ceramic caps with plastic (I don't remember what kind) and the problem went away.

I will admit that I mostly watch your channel for the opportunity to nit-pick at your overgeneralizations rather than expecting to hear anything new. But that is still enjoyable and educational so I guess there is nothing wrong the right kind of rage-bait :)

These are the kinda insights that would take 10yrs to learn yourself the hard way.

Re ceramic cap microphonics, it's absolutely real.  I designed a switcher several years ago that dropped a 12V rail down to 5V at around 6A.  Something on the input side caused an oscillation on the prototype board, and the input caps made a squealing noise that rose and fell in pitch with changes in input voltage.  It was so loud that you could hear it across the room.

Great video John!
Here's an electrolytic fire for you.  1n 1992 I designed a solid state neon power supply.
Standard FWB and 330 uf 200 volt 105C electrolytic filter. This was sourced from Sprague as primary and a Japanese company as secondary. After 2 years of production, about 250K units we a few fires that were traced to open neutral in electric service or possibly a huge Long ac voltage surge.
None of the fires involved Sprague units which had the pressure vent on the side. The Japanese units were 3 petal top vents. So during the overvoltage the Al2O3 dielectric failed causing capacitor overheat. This softened the V0 rated fire retarded plastic case which sat 1.5mm above capacitor top. So when the Japanese caps failed they blew their guts out the top through the softened plastic.  The organic electrolyte soaked paper ignited.  Basically like a Flaming Party Favor.  I was able to reproduce this failure under out fume hood in the presence of two employees of the Japanese company. One was a state side engineer the other the sales rep. Eyes big as saucers and Jaws near dropped to the floor.
So we found another 2nd supplier CDE that also used a side vent which kept the guts inside while venting.

I truly hope you will talk about shipping products worldwide. After the long journey of designing, building, and manufacturing a product, non-technical areas always stand as a barrier for those who are not specialized in product shipping and marketing

During my internship - eons ago - I damn near lost my eyesight due to a row of four tantalum caps exploding about 15 cm from my eyes.  Wasn't my design I was merely troubleshooting but it taught me some respect ;)

Another thing about class 2 mlccs is that their temperature variation gets worse with DC bias

I really learn a lot from you John! Thank you very much.

I learned something new today about the C0G capacitors from you today! Great video, John!

I encountered most of these issues along the way. Ultimately, I abandoned tantalum capacitors entirely. I also stopped using linear regulators that aren't compatible with ceramic capacitors (except for ultra-low-cost designs). However, I still use Y5V capacitors, but with a generous margin—using 2.2µF instead of the standard 0.1µF.

One place where 0402 and even 0201 caps are required is switching power supply ICs.  If the manufacturer includes a PC board layout in the design sheet, use it.  If it has tiny caps right next to the package, don't assume that moving the cap an eighth inch away so you can use a decent sized part will be OK.  It won't be.

Really great information for designers. I knew a few of these capacitor rules but didn't realize there were many more.

Thanks for sharing all these valuable info, much appreciated.

Great video! As a hobbyist, I've done many electronic projects and my ceramics are all X7R already. But thanks for the info on tantalum, using polymer instead is safer.

Thank a lot for this great video! and your excellent explanations!

Way back when, our company made minicomputer peripheral interface boards filled with tantalums for bulk Vcc bypass distributed across 15x15 inch boards. Occasionally our assembly people would install one backwards.  So loud bangs from our final test area were not uncommon.  Usually they didn't burn, but which one blew up was sometimes hard to find. Some never got replaced.