'GLOBAL CAPACITOR SHOOTOUT'

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

don't get discouraged, bud. i'm sure a lot of people are looking forward seeing what you come up with. pm me your address and i'll send you those caps, and if i can find them, those switches.
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CRBMoA
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Post by CRBMoA »

Thanks!

I'm not discouraged. I just have an odd way of expressing myself. :hmmm:

At least that's what my wife says. :mrgreen:

PM'd.
atreidesheir wrote: Let's build some damned pedals!

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MoonWatcher
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Post by MoonWatcher »

CRBMoA wrote:I have been sidetracked with a different project.
I haven't been sidetracked, but my wife was almost killed when a tractor trailer drove over her car two weeks ago. I've been kinda "off my feed" with pedal stuff.

Anyhow, I hate to see this thing stall, or even just slow down. Problem is, I feel like there's not enough of us who are really making the necessary decisions. I've given my input, but I still feel that we need others to chime in, as well.

I don't want it to sound like it's a waste of time, but what's the point of building anything prior to getting a good cross section of input regarding which caps to switch, and some consensus on dialectric types?

Don't get me wrong - I think it's great that we've established that it will be an Overdriver with 100nF caps switched out. But there's more to be hammered out before the iron is even heated up, IMO.

Does that make sense? Anyone have any thoughts on how to corral some folks into giving up the necessary input? It's not my strong suit, to say the least.

Or do we forge on as we are, and just take our lumps down the road? I can deal with the hindsight/20-20 crowd, but that's just speaking for myself.

Maybe we can iron out the switch(es) in the meantime. I think that a 4P3T rotary would be optimal, as all of the caps could be wired to it (assuming that we are switching 4 caps). Less elegant but almost effective would be to have a row of toggles. If positioned correctly, all 4 could be activated simultaneously.

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CRBMoA
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Post by CRBMoA »

Moonwatcher,

Sorry to hear about your wife. I hope she is on the mend.

As far as method for the Shootout, I think we have a lot to work with.

I plan on publishing enough of the preparation for the test (i.e., layout, capacitor choices and locations in the layout, switching parameters, etc), including some build notes and pics (sans the critical cap placements, obviously), that at the very least, we will have developed an acceptable method for double blind, verifiable testing.

Naysayers are free to conduct their own research. This here is the interwebz. It is a forgone conclusion that it is impossible to 'prove' a subjective POV.

My original goals were to learn something, make some friends, improve my skills and just try to add my humble contributions to a forum that I see as a great body of research and researchers.

Much like the nut jobs that search for Bigfoot and Nessie, to me, my quest IS the prize!
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atreidesheir wrote: Let's build some damned pedals!

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RnFR
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Post by RnFR »

here's a informative, and sometimes hilarious, thread from a while back that has a lot to say on the subject-
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=4492&start=0&hilit= ... capacitors

it is the one where gus references the "bad" ceramic cap that can be found in one of the studies. i'll have to go back and find out exactly which one it is. i want to say "Kv"?

as far as the circuit goes, i was just going to try and hammer something out. i was thinking that the CSOD would still be a great contender, but in order to simplify things, we would pull out the tone control, and replace it with a resistor to ground. this would drop some of the signal to ground and simulate the tone control at it's middle position. there are a few things that will have to be worked out, like the size of the resistor, anf the fact that the the tone control is an NFB style control which will be screwing with the gain of the 3rd stage, so that might have to be adjusted as well. i'm not above raising up the collector resistor too, just for easier biasing. this is something that is going to be have to be worked out on the breadboard to make sure that it is a stable design. it shouldn't be that hard though, as the CSOD is itself is a solid design, and all of that NFB tends to iron things out nicely.

if anyone has any input on this, please don't hesitate to jump in. i've got it all started in eagle, just so i can show you guys what i'm talking about. once i get it drawn up, i'll post it.
"You've converted me to Cubic thinking. Where do I sign up for the newsletter? I need to learn more about how I can break free from ONEism Death Math." - Soulsonic

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