Hi, this is my first post. I'm trying to determine what brand of capacitor is suitable for an Aquaboy build.
The brand used in the prototype pictured in the documentation (the yellow box caps, that is) appear to be the AVX brand, which Mouser has marked "obsolete" and seem to be phasing out (very few are still available). In the past, I've only used greenies, but I realize that this is sort of a tight build, so I'm wondering what brands others were able to use successfully. . . say, some similar make of box cap. There are so many to choose from with Mouser, and other than checking the dimensions of every kind, I've no idea where to start; any ideas?
Grigori-
You can use either WIMA box caps or Panasonic ECQ-V. Both are available from Mouser, although the Panasonic ones are a bit spotty on stock. Smallbear has them, too, and in quantity.
Anyway, it's 5mm lead spacing on those caps, FYI.
I haven't built the Aquaboy, but I thought I'd share my experience with some caps.
I've been using the kemet box caps from mouser and I've found they sound just fine. Even the 2.5% tolerance ones are cheaper than WIMA. They aren't very interesting to look at though, unless off-white/gray is your favorite color.
cheers
I use the Topmay box caps from Smallbear. They sound fine to my ears and are less expensive than the wima's.
I like that you can get them in packs of 100, and then the price for them comes down quite dramatically. I eneded up paying 8 cents per cap for nearly 2000 of them my last restock, and 12 and 14 cents each for some of the larger values.
Jacob
Thanks for the responses, guys. I was more concerned about physical bulk than sound; the caps I used on my first BMP back in 2000 (jeez, 10 years now!) sounded fine, but were cramped like crazy, and many had to be bent over at odd angles or standing up much higher than they should have just to accommodate the other components. That lead spacing info is particularly helpful, madbean; thanks for the Panasonic prefix.
Just curious: were those used in the prototype AVX? I found a pic online from Digikey that looked exactly like them.
Yeah, I use the AVX in all my stuff. I bought a lot of the remaining Mouser stock when it was obsoleted.
Good to hear about the Topmays at SB. I don't have any first hand experience with them, so I have not recommended them to anyone. But, by all means: buy and buy in quantity!