Caps and charging time

Frequently asked questions on capacitor types, ratings, brands, use and abuse.
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Post by JakeAC5253 »

Since my Muff is working again (yay), I am curious as to what is causing this issue. When I click in the pedal the volume swells up instead of just immediately switching over. I have some very large caps in there, so it wouldn't surprise me if this was the sound of the caps charging. Could anyone verify this?

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Post by PhillyWill »

There's a formula for that!
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hb ... hg.html#c1

Click the "Calculation" link and plug in your numbers.

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Post by PokeyPete »

JakeAC5253 wrote:Since my Muff is working again (yay), I am curious as to what is causing this issue. When I click in the pedal the volume swells up instead of just immediately switching over. I have some very large caps in there, so it wouldn't surprise me if this was the sound of the caps charging. Could anyone verify this?
Why would you have large capacitors in the circuit? What is their value? Where are they in the circuit?
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Post by JakeAC5253 »

PhillyWill wrote:There's a formula for that!
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hb ... hg.html#c1

Click the "Calculation" link and plug in your numbers.
Ahh, very nice thank you! Yes, it seems that due to a large input cap, the charge time is around a half second. I would say that sounds accurate.

Since the mod (involving a number of caps through the build) my sound has become rather squashed and it doesn't really sound very high gain to me. It's got a lot of gain, but doesn't really 'sound' gainy. Do you think that could be due to the large (10uF) input cap? Or perhaps the caps on the clipping stage (4.7uF)? Pre-clipping stage caps are 1uF, and the final output cap is 10uF as well. From here, just looking to make the pedal 'sound' more gainy. Any words of wisdom before I warm up the iron again?

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Post by Greg »

JakeAC5253 wrote:
PhillyWill wrote:There's a formula for that!
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hb ... hg.html#c1

Click the "Calculation" link and plug in your numbers.
Ahh, very nice thank you! Yes, it seems that due to a large input cap, the charge time is around a half second. I would say that sounds accurate.

Since the mod (involving a number of caps through the build) my sound has become rather squashed and it doesn't really sound very high gain to me. It's got a lot of gain, but doesn't really 'sound' gainy. Do you think that could be due to the large (10uF) input cap? Or perhaps the caps on the clipping stage (4.7uF)? Pre-clipping stage caps are 1uF, and the final output cap is 10uF as well. From here, just looking to make the pedal 'sound' more gainy. Any words of wisdom before I warm up the iron again?
This relates to charging a capacitor with DC current, not to passing an AC signal.
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Post by JakeAC5253 »

Greg_G wrote:
JakeAC5253 wrote:
PhillyWill wrote:There's a formula for that!
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hb ... hg.html#c1

Click the "Calculation" link and plug in your numbers.
Ahh, very nice thank you! Yes, it seems that due to a large input cap, the charge time is around a half second. I would say that sounds accurate.

Since the mod (involving a number of caps through the build) my sound has become rather squashed and it doesn't really sound very high gain to me. It's got a lot of gain, but doesn't really 'sound' gainy. Do you think that could be due to the large (10uF) input cap? Or perhaps the caps on the clipping stage (4.7uF)? Pre-clipping stage caps are 1uF, and the final output cap is 10uF as well. From here, just looking to make the pedal 'sound' more gainy. Any words of wisdom before I warm up the iron again?
This relates to charging a capacitor with DC current, not to passing an AC signal.
Ahh, yes. My mistake. Even then, wouldn't the clipping caps exhibit some sort of charging/discharging behavior since they are directly in line with the supply DC?

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Post by Hides-His-Eyes »

Say you've got an electrolytic input with no DC on the far side, might the input not take the PD the wrong way on the electrolytic?
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Post by Greg »

There are smarter people than me here on this I have no doubt.. so if anyone wants to step in..
But, yes, if there's DC present, the cap will charge and block it... AC signal will pass.
Hides-His-Eyes wrote:Say you've got an electrolytic input with no DC on the far side, might the input not take the PD the wrong way on the electrolytic?
Not sure I understand.
There would have to be a difference in potential between the 2 points.. youi can't have voltage at one point, or one side of a cap only.
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Post by JakeAC5253 »

Hides-His-Eyes wrote:Say you've got an electrolytic input with no DC on the far side, might the input not take the PD the wrong way on the electrolytic?
I'm going to show my ignorance here, but I'm not sure what PD is.

Not sure if this is pertinent to your post or not, but I'm not using any electrolytics in my build.

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Post by Hides-His-Eyes »

JakeAC5253 wrote:
Hides-His-Eyes wrote:Say you've got an electrolytic input with no DC on the far side, might the input not take the PD the wrong way on the electrolytic?
I'm going to show my ignorance here, but I'm not sure what PD is.

Not sure if this is pertinent to your post or not, but I'm not using any electrolytics in my build.
This is a purely academic discussion; I know that electros work in this context.

PD means potential difference, and is usually used in a context where talking relative to ground is meaningless.


Greg:

A 0.1V sine wave ----*||-----0V. When that sine wave goes negative, why doesn't the electrolytic care?
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Post by Greg »

Hides-His-Eyes wrote:Greg:

A 0.1V sine wave ----*||-----0V. When that sine wave goes negative, why doesn't the electrolytic care?
A good question.. I had to go looking, and found this on the gaussmarkov:diy fx site:

Note that the polarity of voltage across a capacitor does not have to change for AC to flow. All that matters is the difference between two voltages:

1.the voltage across the plates within the capacitor and
2.the voltage across the leads of the capacitor caused by the source voltage.
If there is a difference, then electrons in the capacitor will redistribute themselves towards matching the source voltage and current will flow.
As a result, a polarized capacitor will also conduct AC even though the polarity of the voltage across its leads does not change. As long as the magnitude of the voltage is changing, current will flow through a capacitor.

It may be helpful to think of AC as similar to water moving back and forth in a garden hose. The flow of the water repeatedly changes direction. Now suppose that we hook up two hoses with a rubber diaphragm (an analogy to a capacitor) in between. Water cannot flow from one hose into the other, but it can still move back and forth through the two hoses. In addition, if we add some extra water pressure from one end, this back and forth movement can still occur. It is the changing magnitude of pressure that matters not the changing direction of pressure.
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Post by DrNomis »

That's a good analogy there Greg_G.... :)



For D.C. (Direct Current),we can think of a capacitor as being an open circuit,since the dielectric insulator between the two plates has a very high resistance,A.C. (Alternating Current) through a capacitor,is a different story altogether,the capacitor exhibits resistance but the resistance changes according to frequency,as you go up in frequency,the resistance drops...... :)
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Post by DrNomis »

JakeAC5253 wrote:
PhillyWill wrote:There's a formula for that!
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hb ... hg.html#c1

Click the "Calculation" link and plug in your numbers.
Ahh, very nice thank you! Yes, it seems that due to a large input cap, the charge time is around a half second. I would say that sounds accurate.

Since the mod (involving a number of caps through the build) my sound has become rather squashed and it doesn't really sound very high gain to me. It's got a lot of gain, but doesn't really 'sound' gainy. Do you think that could be due to the large (10uF) input cap? Or perhaps the caps on the clipping stage (4.7uF)? Pre-clipping stage caps are 1uF, and the final output cap is 10uF as well. From here, just looking to make the pedal 'sound' more gainy. Any words of wisdom before I warm up the iron again?



Just out of curiosity,is there a particular reason why you are using such high values of capacitance in those parts of the circuit?..... :)
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Post by Hides-His-Eyes »

Greg_G wrote:
Hides-His-Eyes wrote:Greg:

A 0.1V sine wave ----*||-----0V. When that sine wave goes negative, why doesn't the electrolytic care?
A good question.. I had to go looking, and found this on the gaussmarkov:diy fx site:

Note that the polarity of voltage across a capacitor does not have to change for AC to flow. All that matters is the difference between two voltages:

1.the voltage across the plates within the capacitor and
2.the voltage across the leads of the capacitor caused by the source voltage.
If there is a difference, then electrons in the capacitor will redistribute themselves towards matching the source voltage and current will flow.
As a result, a polarized capacitor will also conduct AC even though the polarity of the voltage across its leads does not change. As long as the magnitude of the voltage is changing, current will flow through a capacitor.

It may be helpful to think of AC as similar to water moving back and forth in a garden hose. The flow of the water repeatedly changes direction. Now suppose that we hook up two hoses with a rubber diaphragm (an analogy to a capacitor) in between. Water cannot flow from one hose into the other, but it can still move back and forth through the two hoses. In addition, if we add some extra water pressure from one end, this back and forth movement can still occur. It is the changing magnitude of pressure that matters not the changing direction of pressure.
That's a good explanation, thanks :)
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Post by DrNomis »

I just had a thought.... :)


In Valve Amplifiers,if you make the stage coupling capacitors too high in value,it can cause something called "Blocking Distortion",basically the DC charge on the capacitor becomes high enough to bias the Valve stage completely into cutoff,then the Capacitor slowly discharges at a rate determined by the time constant formed by the coupling capacitor and the grid leak resistor and anode load resistorbecause the resistors,and the capacitor are high in value,the discharge rate tends to take a bit of time,during this time,no signal is passed by the stage.... :)



Now,I'm wondering if the issue with the Big Muff build is something similar?.... :)
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Post by JakeAC5253 »

Greg_G wrote:
Hides-His-Eyes wrote:Greg:

A 0.1V sine wave ----*||-----0V. When that sine wave goes negative, why doesn't the electrolytic care?
A good question.. I had to go looking, and found this on the gaussmarkov:diy fx site:

Note that the polarity of voltage across a capacitor does not have to change for AC to flow. All that matters is the difference between two voltages:

1.the voltage across the plates within the capacitor and
2.the voltage across the leads of the capacitor caused by the source voltage.
If there is a difference, then electrons in the capacitor will redistribute themselves towards matching the source voltage and current will flow.
As a result, a polarized capacitor will also conduct AC even though the polarity of the voltage across its leads does not change. As long as the magnitude of the voltage is changing, current will flow through a capacitor.

It may be helpful to think of AC as similar to water moving back and forth in a garden hose. The flow of the water repeatedly changes direction. Now suppose that we hook up two hoses with a rubber diaphragm (an analogy to a capacitor) in between. Water cannot flow from one hose into the other, but it can still move back and forth through the two hoses. In addition, if we add some extra water pressure from one end, this back and forth movement can still occur. It is the changing magnitude of pressure that matters not the changing direction of pressure.
Thanks! So caps block DC because it is constant, and cannot block AC so easily because it is constantly changing? It can only slow down the lower frequencies? Maybe because lower frequencies are closer to DC because they are more slowly changing?

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Post by JakeAC5253 »

DrNomis wrote:
JakeAC5253 wrote:
PhillyWill wrote:There's a formula for that!
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hb ... hg.html#c1

Click the "Calculation" link and plug in your numbers.
Ahh, very nice thank you! Yes, it seems that due to a large input cap, the charge time is around a half second. I would say that sounds accurate.

Since the mod (involving a number of caps through the build) my sound has become rather squashed and it doesn't really sound very high gain to me. It's got a lot of gain, but doesn't really 'sound' gainy. Do you think that could be due to the large (10uF) input cap? Or perhaps the caps on the clipping stage (4.7uF)? Pre-clipping stage caps are 1uF, and the final output cap is 10uF as well. From here, just looking to make the pedal 'sound' more gainy. Any words of wisdom before I warm up the iron again?



Just out of curiosity,is there a particular reason why you are using such high values of capacitance in those parts of the circuit?..... :)
Well I've seen schematics of Ram's Head Muff's using a 10uF input cap, so that's where the idea for the really large capacitors comes from. I've also heard someone say 'small input caps = overdrive, large input caps = fuzz' but I'm not sure how true that is. The output cap is also 10uF because I wanted the output to be clean and full sounding. Also, I thought that maybe the large capacitance of the output cap would drive the output of the pedal harder. The other coupling caps are large to pass the signal cleanly. Also, all coupling caps (not the treble feedback caps or power supply caps) were .2uF before and I didn't like the sound. Terrible to me. The clipping caps had an actual reason. I wanted the clipping caps to be large so as not to pass so much low end through the clipping stages. I thought that it would tighten up the response of the pedal, and it did, but it killed the feel :\ They have since been modded to 1uF and it seems a little better. The treble feedback caps on all stages are 560pF and I have a hunch that they are choking the life out of the pedal, at least contributing a little bit to the problem.

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Post by DrNomis »

JakeAC5253 wrote:
Greg_G wrote:
Hides-His-Eyes wrote:Greg:

A 0.1V sine wave ----*||-----0V. When that sine wave goes negative, why doesn't the electrolytic care?
A good question.. I had to go looking, and found this on the gaussmarkov:diy fx site:

Note that the polarity of voltage across a capacitor does not have to change for AC to flow. All that matters is the difference between two voltages:

1.the voltage across the plates within the capacitor and
2.the voltage across the leads of the capacitor caused by the source voltage.
If there is a difference, then electrons in the capacitor will redistribute themselves towards matching the source voltage and current will flow.
As a result, a polarized capacitor will also conduct AC even though the polarity of the voltage across its leads does not change. As long as the magnitude of the voltage is changing, current will flow through a capacitor.

It may be helpful to think of AC as similar to water moving back and forth in a garden hose. The flow of the water repeatedly changes direction. Now suppose that we hook up two hoses with a rubber diaphragm (an analogy to a capacitor) in between. Water cannot flow from one hose into the other, but it can still move back and forth through the two hoses. In addition, if we add some extra water pressure from one end, this back and forth movement can still occur. It is the changing magnitude of pressure that matters not the changing direction of pressure.
Thanks! So caps block DC because it is constant, and cannot block AC so easily because it is constantly changing? It can only slow down the lower frequencies? Maybe because lower frequencies are closer to DC because they are more slowly changing?


You could think of capacitors,and for that matter,inductors,as frequency-dependant-resistors,for capacitors,the AC resistance is inversely proportional to frequency,as frequency goes up,the AC resistance goes down,an inductor behaves differently,in this case,the AC resistance is proportional to frequency..... :)
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Post by DrNomis »

JakeAC5253 wrote:
DrNomis wrote:
JakeAC5253 wrote:
PhillyWill wrote:There's a formula for that!
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hb ... hg.html#c1

Click the "Calculation" link and plug in your numbers.
Ahh, very nice thank you! Yes, it seems that due to a large input cap, the charge time is around a half second. I would say that sounds accurate.

Since the mod (involving a number of caps through the build) my sound has become rather squashed and it doesn't really sound very high gain to me. It's got a lot of gain, but doesn't really 'sound' gainy. Do you think that could be due to the large (10uF) input cap? Or perhaps the caps on the clipping stage (4.7uF)? Pre-clipping stage caps are 1uF, and the final output cap is 10uF as well. From here, just looking to make the pedal 'sound' more gainy. Any words of wisdom before I warm up the iron again?



Just out of curiosity,is there a particular reason why you are using such high values of capacitance in those parts of the circuit?..... :)
Well I've seen schematics of Ram's Head Muff's using a 10uF input cap, so that's where the idea for the really large capacitors comes from. I've also heard someone say 'small input caps = overdrive, large input caps = fuzz' but I'm not sure how true that is. The output cap is also 10uF because I wanted the output to be clean and full sounding. Also, I thought that maybe the large capacitance of the output cap would drive the output of the pedal harder. The other coupling caps are large to pass the signal cleanly. Also, all coupling caps (not the treble feedback caps or power supply caps) were .2uF before and I didn't like the sound. Terrible to me. The clipping caps had an actual reason. I wanted the clipping caps to be large so as not to pass so much low end through the clipping stages. I thought that it would tighten up the response of the pedal, and it did, but it killed the feel :\ They have since been modded to 1uF and it seems a little better. The treble feedback caps on all stages are 560pF and I have a hunch that they are choking the life out of the pedal, at least contributing a little bit to the problem.



The input capacitor of a Big Muff actually determines the low frequency cutoff point,so if you make this capacitor bigger in value,you shift the low frequency cutoff point down in frequency,if you make it smaller in value,you shift the low frequency cutoff point up in frequency,this can be used to reduce the muddiness of the sound of a fuzz circuit.... :)


I may be wrong,but I seem to recall that the value of the input capacitor in a Big Muff,was something like 10 to 100nF.... :)

I also seem to remember that the Treble feedback caps were originally 560pF too,but I could be wrong.... :)


For a guitar tuned to standard pitch (E A D G B E),the frequency range is from about 82Hz (lowest E),to about 5000Hz (Highest E) including all harmonics,a 6-string Bass guitar is tuned an octave below standard guitar pitch..... :)


What the original designer of the Big Muff would have done is selected an input capacitor value that would give a low frequency cutoff just below about 82Hz,this would ensure enough gain at 82Hz,yet would reduce tendencies to mudiness.... :)


Mind you,Big Muff capacitor values isn't something set in stone though.... :)


Hope that helps..... :)
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Post by Greg »

I don't think you can really define a cutoff point for guitar harmonics, and they can certainly go above 5000Hz...
Generally the lower ones will overpower them, but when you're playing with electronics anything's possible and those high harmonics can be fun.
There's also subharmonics when you start distorting, which extend below the fundamental.

The Ram's Head Muff did use a 10uf Input cap, but you're right that most versions used a .01uF.
JakeAC5253 wrote:Thanks! So caps block DC because it is constant, and cannot block AC so easily because it is constantly changing? It can only slow down the lower frequencies? Maybe because lower frequencies are closer to DC because they are more slowly changing?
I think a good way to visualise it is to consider that DC current involves the flow of electrons in one direction, and they can't flow through a capacitor.
AC is really a pulsing back and forwards of electrons.. so they can collect on one side of the capacitor, and then discharge and collect on the other without the need to flow through it.
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