On Wed, 12 Jan 2022, Peter Coghlan via cctalk wrote:
They do have spikes of solder sticking out from the positive ends
Yes, those are tantalum caps. The "hat" as I've always called it marks the positive end, and it should be part of the case, so it won't melt away in solder. These things are a bit obsolete and aren't particularly common, but not impossible either. I use a 100uF 0805-size (2mm x 1.25mm) one of these on a weird board we build for a customer at work; getting that much capacitance in a part that small always amazes me!
I hit Ebay to see if I could find something vaguely like what you have. The first listings that looked plausible were 194453105893 and 203613355685. I'm not saying they're the right size, or voltage, or anything like it, but it'll get you a manufacturer's part number that you can search for and find like ones. His price seems high too. You could, of course, sub an ordinary tantalum.
I managed to desolder one of them from the middle of the picture using two soldering irons. I am not very good at this surface mount stuff :-( It came out ok though. I must have got lucky and picked a good one because it measured 47uF on the capacitance range on my multimeter.
Two irons is a perfectly valid method of removing SMT parts, if you're quick! Ever heard of a hot tweezer? It's two little irons, hinged at the top. I have a variety of tips for mine and prefer it to hot air for most small things. (Well, for routine work I usually have a chisel tip on my iron, and can get across both ends of something up to 0805-size and sweep it off the board. 1206 and bigger, you have to get creative, or use the hot tweezer.)
Richard Schauer KF9VP
