I have a power supply board for an LCD with bad caps. I desoldered the caps. I however failed to mark the polarity before I pulled them. Is there a way to determine how to install them. The board has markings where the caps go. Its a half shaded circle. I'm wondering does the shaded side indicate negative and the non shaded positive.
A normal legged electrolyte capacitor :
http://www.farnell.com/datasheets/14936.pdf
On this pdf, the ground is connected to the pin of the capacitor closest to the white stripe.
A tantalium SMT capacitor :
Who ever invented the casing of this capacitor did not like standards. Tantalium capacitors have the pin with + polarity marked with a stripe.
Confuse a tantalium with a aluminium elctrolyte capacitor and you get a very large BANG !
http://www.farnell.com/datasheets/80703.pdf
A aluminium electrolyte capacitor SMT model 1:
On this pdf, the ground is connected to the pin of the capacitor closest shaded half of the capacitor. In the datasheet it is the purple spot.
http://www.farnell.com/datasheets/31865.pdf
A aluminium polymer capacitor SMT :
Who ever invented the casing of this capacitor did not like standards.
On this pdf, the + is connected to the pin with the + marking. Therefore, the ground should be connected to the other pin.
http://www.farnell.com/datasheets/437475.pdf
The only way to be sure is to measure and look up some datasheets. Although it is all pretty standard. At
www.farnell.com you can usually find a lot of components and corresponding datasheets.