Sludgehammer Capacitors...

[greysun]

Hi everyone!

I'll caveat this post with the fact that I used to make lots of pedals, but stopped once I had a decent collection. I always purchased more parts than I needed in case of wrong parts, delivery issues, or just my own dumb breaking of them. Because it's been a while, I need a little refresher, hehe. That being said...

I'm doing my order list for a sludgehammer - surprisingly, I have almost all of the parts, but my caps are a mixed bag... I'll list them off:

1) I have some ceramic caps at higher values (example: 10n and 22n) that I could use instead of box/film caps - think this would be an issue in the build?

2) I don't have any 220pf, but I have a TON of 470pf - if I run them in series, I'm getting to 235pf - think this would be in tolerance?

Any help, as always, is appreciated! Should be a fun build!

[mauman]

235 pF is less than 7% away from 220 pF, so you're good using two 470's. Chances are good they're not exactly 470 anyway, so if you have a meter that will measure capacitance, measure two 470's in series and pick the pair closest to 220.

Many vintage pedals used those ceramic caps, IMHO they're fine for a distortion pedal.  They can be microphonic, and the capacitance will vary more with temperature and voltage than other cap types, so I wouldn't use them for a low-noise EQ pedal or a filter that requires precise values.  But for a Sludge Hammer, I'd use what I had on hand. 

[greysun]

Awesome! Thank you for the reply!

I hate to order more than I need and happy to work with what I've got, so this works. :-)