Specifically I'm thinking of the 47uF caps in something like a Rangemaster, Orange Squeezer, or other simple drives. Are these specifically as high as 47uF for an electronic reason, or could I use, say, 33uF?
I'm asking partly because I can get Tantalum caps at Tayda for a fraction of the price of the small electrolytics at Mouser or the 47uF Tantalums at Smallbear. But the tants only go up to 33uF.
Looking at the Rangemaster in particular, you've got two 47uF caps.
C5 is a power filtering capacitor. In that case, 100uF is a common value, but 47uF, 22uF and even 10uF "could" be used. Often, higher values are perferred, but there's no reason why a 33uF wouldn't work when only 47uF is called for.
C3 also works as a filter, only instead of being connected directly to ground it's going from the Emitter to ground. In this case, again I'm fairly certain that a 33uF value would be fine electrically. However, in this case you might find an impact on your sound.
In this case, because we're talking about less than 3 or 4 dollars, I would personally make the effort to find axial electrolytic caps rather than go with the less expensive tantalum parts. The only way that I might disregard my own advice was if I wanted the particular sound that another type of cap imparts. In my case, I've never really been able to hear a 'tone' difference between Electrolytic or Tantalum caps in a live band situation, so I've never worried about it.
Jacob
Quote from: jkokura on May 25, 2012, 01:49:00 AM
Looking at the Rangemaster in particular, you've got two 47uF caps.
C5 is a power filtering capacitor. In that case, 100uF is a common value, but 47uF, 22uF and even 10uF "could" be used. Often, higher values are perferred, but there's no reason why a 33uF wouldn't work when only 47uF is called for.
C3 also works as a filter, only instead of being connected directly to ground it's going from the Emitter to ground. In this case, again I'm fairly certain that a 33uF value would be fine electrically. However, in this case you might find an impact on your sound.
In this case, because we're talking about less than 3 or 4 dollars, I would personally make the effort to find axial electrolytic caps rather than go with the less expensive tantalum parts. The only way that I might disregard my own advice was if I wanted the particular sound that another type of cap imparts. In my case, I've never really been able to hear a 'tone' difference between Electrolytic or Tantalum caps in a live band situation, so I've never worried about it.
Jacob
Thank you, as always, Jacob.
I forgot to mention that my reason for asking was the physical size of the caps for fitting certain circuits in smaller cases. I realize a Rangemaster is small enough to fit regardless, but I figured I can carry this knowledge to other circuits.
I suppose with power filtering, I can also go up to 100uF, since those are generally smaller than other electrolytics anyway.
Interesting, as my 100uF caps are bigger, at 6.3x12 instead of 5x11...
Jacob