Brent,
     Nope. That X is a weak spot in the casing and it is put there by=20
the manufacturer as a safety valve so that the capacitor won't go=20
ballistic if the capacitor should fail. What happened to Bob was not=20
supposed to occur. I have had Capacitors fail, including a couple that I=20
have also put in backwards over the years and I have had only one go=20
ballistic. The others opened at the top. Those had gone pop as there=20
were pieces of the insides blown all over the place but at least those=20
pieces would not have been dangerous except for a few minor burns.
GOD Bless and Thanks,
rich!

On 2/25/2018 7:49 PM, Brent Brown wrote:
> On 26 Feb 2018 at 1:36, Bob Blick wrote:
>
>> By mistake I put an electrolytic capacitor in backwards. A very
>> generic 100uF, 50V cap exposed to 16V with the equivalent of about
>> 700 ohms in series with it. It lasted about 30 minutes, then went
>> off with a bang. You can maybe see the damaged heatshrink where the
>> can hit an immovable object.
>>
>> Please note the scored cross on the top of the can. Isn't that
>> supposed to split and protect me from its rapid self-disassembly?
>> Yes, I was right there, close at hand, trying to figure out why all
>> the voltages were wrong. Perhaps their die for the venting "X" was
>> worn out after 20 million caps. I guess that's what I get when I pay
>> USD 0.03 for caps off of Aliexpress instead of USD 0.11 at Digi-Key
> Perhaps it's a matter of interpretation. The X means "not this end", and =
the arrows
> define the direction of thrust... ;-)
>


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