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Radial Lead, Through-Hole
The biggest advantage of Tantalum capacitors is their high capacitance per area occupied on the circuit board. Like Electrolytic capacitors they are polarized, and you must pay attention to this fact. Tantalum capacitors, like Electrolytics, can fail if you hook them up with the wrong polarity, but their advantages far outweigh this inconvenience. The positive lead is the longer of the two. Hook it to the positive node of your circuit.
Tantalum capacitors are usually the ideal device to use in filters and timing circuits as they closely obey the differential equation that best describes all capacitors, namely : i = C dV/dt . Simple oscillators often don't work with anything other than a Tantalum capacitor.
Tantalum capacitors are more expensive than other types, but they are the Cadillac of capacitors. If you are trying to filter the output of a power supply or you need a decoupling capacitor on the Vcc pin of a chip, don't waste your money on Tantalum. Use Ceramic Disk or Electrolytic capacitors. On the other hand, if you are building an oscillator or filter, you probably need Tantalum.
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