CAPACITORS

Hey

I love this DIY stuff and want to learn as mush as I can. Now, I've got a question for you all. There is allot of different capacitors, you have for example TANTALUM, ELECTROLYTIC, CERAMIC, POLYESTER. What is the difference? I know they are made of different materials, but how do they differ in the way they work?

Would it interfere in the sound of a devise if you exchange for instance a polyester with a ceramic?

A

caps are made from different materials. and yes, caps (directly) in the signalpath do contribute to the sound. also, it depends if they're biased (at least with lytics & tantals). i think it has been discussed here before, so a search might yeild some interesting threads

beware though, it's a touchy audiophoolistic and almost religious topic

[quote author="anneflyr"]Hey

I love this DIY stuff and want to learn as mush as I can. Now, I've got a question for you all. There is allot of different capacitors, you have for example TANTALUM, ELECTROLYTIC, CERAMIC, POLYESTER. What is the difference? I know they are made of different materials, but how do they differ in the way they work?

Would it interfere in the sound of a devise if you exchange for instance a polyester with a ceramic?

A[/quote]

Hi A... there's a lot of good infor scattered about right in the formun... lave tou read the lowdown on capacitors in the meta-links?Try goung throug that as much as you can and then ask if your confused about a specific usage in a specifik desighn... IOW get the basics nailed firdt to some degree. Pretty soonyou'l have a handle on the "normal" use for caps ie 600V 330mF electrolytic = power sypply filtering cap, .33 mF 600V orangedrop (or goldleafed,wrapped in sacred shourd of turin, bless by pope) --- for interstage caps.

HTH,

KIira

Cap Meta, anybody?
Gus volenterred, in vol en tar il y I might add.

Anneflyr you could try this link too:

http://www.capacitors.com/picking_capacitors/pickcap.htm

I find this article a bit technical but it's great infos !

Remi G.

[quote author="CJ"]Cap Meta, anybody?[/quote]

Well done, that man!

-CJ offers to handle the Cap Meta!!!

:green: :thumb:

Keef

To all of you, I am really impressed. I post this novice question, and get 6 replies in 5 hours. You guys are amazing! As you see I have been a member since may, even tough I am a zero poster. It so much to read here I actually haven't felt the need to post until now. The kind of voluntary free help you can get here has made me look with different eyes on the human race. This forum is just filled with peace and love. I am gonna do my bit to keep it up. THANKS! :thumb:

Viitalahde, Thanks very nice info for the novice. Just what I needed at this stage. Waiting to se you website...


KrIVIUM2323, Thanks for link, I saw the same site some months back and also thought it was to technical. But, I've learned some, so I'll give it another go.

CJ, I find this discursions over the parts really fascinating. Cap meta would be cool.


A

Thanks to you I've solved the problem I had with my G1176 part finding faze. I looked at the site KrIVIUM2323 mentioned. And they state that in audio circuits polypropylene cap is better that POLYESTER caps. I had trouble finding right values of POLYESTER caps at my supplier, but they have the polypropylene. It will not be a correct clone, but better!


A

[quote author="anneflyr"]...snip... This forum is just filled with peace and love. I am gonna do my bit to keep it up. THANKS! :thumb:
..snip...
[/quote]

Errr....maybe you had best stay out of the Brewery for a while though :green:

Seriously, this is one of the friendliest sites around :thumb:

maybe you had best stay out of the Brewery for a while though

Click to expand...

No, come to the brewery and lets have a nice political fight!!! :green:

hi guys i do not know if this is the right place for this reply but i have heard a trick from an old man who is working on radios pre world war 2.
he told me that he baked his coupleing caps in a home made oven to solve the cristelised oils in it. this in order to keep the radio as origional as possible.
nice idea or was this man a bit to old?

great forum BTW!!!

what about those canned dual-values/capacitances caps ? seen them very often in power sections of tube gears. How do we wire such caps ?
thanks..

Do you mean the ones in marshall if so take a look at the schematic it is just like 2 caps in one housing but with a common negative, mostly collorcoded or numberd on the side of the can.

dank u well frits.. yes, like those in Marshalls for example. Does this mean, we can get 64uf out of 2x32uf if both legs are tied together ? and only 32uf if we only use one leg ? how would this affect the voltage rating ?

yes you can but it is almost always used as a so called PI filter so 32uf to ground resistor 32uf to ground the votage rating is the same, if you want to higher that one you can use it in series to ground but you need two neg leeds that is'nt suported in tho most of these caps ( if you do this you wil half its capasety but double its voltage handeling, remenber to shunt the caps so the first one does not get the full blast!). this last example is used in old fender amps.

Viitalahde wrote

On the works..

Click to expand...

Mine too..... :thumb:

What would be a reasonably nice temperature for heating caps in the oven? I wanna try it with my STAlevel cans... I was ready to replace it, but it will mess a lot with the original layout, that I would rather keep, so if I could reform those old caps, it would be good!

Or should I use the method of aplying a very slow rising over time DC only and forget about the oven thing?

the thing is if you try to reform them with dc and the inside is cristalised i think the caps wil become in short at least some of them, I have trayed it in an litle oven i made out of some plywood and 3 60 watts light bulbs i used for other things, most caps can easaly take a 180 degees.
left them in for two days, pop them back in and start it up with a variac.
the thing is you never know if it helped or not.
maybe if some othe DIYers try this we can solve the mistery

180 degrees for 2 days? WOW! I was expecting much less.