capacitor confusion......

[guitarmonky55]

ok im building my first pedal, an easyface.  im gathering up the parts and im having some trouble with the caps.

the wiring diagram calls for 3 electrolytic caps, a .01uF, a 3.3uF, and a 22uF

i went to small bear electronics, and his caps are listed with mF instead of uF....these both mean microfarads right?  or am i totally wrong here?

secondly.........it seems to me that a .01 microfarad electrolytic capacitor doesnt exist........which means that either im reading these units wrong or the diagram is wrong or ......i dont know!  can anybody help set me straight as im sure you can tell im pretty mixed up here!

[vanhansen]

mf is the same as uF (both microfarads).  I ran across the same thing and Steve cleared it up for me.

You can use non-electrolytic caps of the same value if you can't locate one.  I personally haven't seen a .01uF electro.  I have Panasonic Poly Films and Metal Films.  Either one would work fine.

Do you have an image of the schematic you're using?

[bluesdevil]

Steve uses mf instead of uf... so it's the same. Also anything under 1uf can be found under his Panasonic or Xicon poly caps sections, I think.

[guitarmonky55]

http://www.generalguitargadgets.com/diagrams/easyface.pdf
the diagram in there is what im using

so basically i should just use a regular film cap for that .01uF?

[bluesdevil]

Sorry Van, I didn't mean to repeat you.... you're post wasn't up when I saw this and I type slow, hahaha!!!!

[vanhansen]

No problem, bluesdevil.  We posted at the same time actually.

guitarmonky, the 22uF isn't electrolytic.  There's no + sign indicating that it is. I looked at what Digikey has and they lowest value they have is 0.1uF.  Mouser has .01uF though.  Search their site and enter "electrolytic capacitors .01uF" without the quotes.  It returns 3 matches.

Quick answer, yes, you can use a regular film cap of the same value instead.  I've done it on a few projects already with no problems.

[guitarmonky55]

i thought that the cap symbol where its curved/straight means electrolytic......it says so here: http://www.diystompboxes.com/pedals/FAQ.html

[vanhansen]

You're right, my bad.  The 22uF is electrolytic.  I should have caught that myself.  :oops: So much for consistency in schematics.  

[guitarmonky55]

thanks for all the help now ive got everything figured out

[Arno van der Heijden]

Actually, mF stands for milifarad!!
Maybe some people use this notation for microfarad, but it's WRONG!! :shock:

[niftydog]

mF is old school speak for microfarad, it's not wrong, it's just old!

But yes, technically mF is millifarad, but we all know that you don't easily install 2200mF caps into hammond diecast boxes!!!!

Most websites these days are ASCII savy, and most "standard ASCII sets" (no such thing is there?!!) contain the greek letter mu - µ.

So if you ask me, mF means millifard, µF means microfarad.

(to get mu, hold ALT and type 230 on your number pad, then release ALT.)

[Hal]

but mH NEVER means "micro henry" - always millihenry, right ?

probably except for when it doesn't.

[petemoore]

They'll never get caps to where they all read values the same way...I wonder why that is.

[petemoore]

Nevermind I know why, theres' no room to write on a teeny cap, let alone read it.
 I've seen some wierdo markings on capacitors.

[niftydog]

but mH NEVER means "micro henry" - always millihenry, right ?

that's a good rule to go by, but I would never say never! In all likelyhood it used to stand for micro back in the 40's.

[aron]

>01uF, a 3.3uF, and a 22uF

Use film for the .01uF and the rest electrolytic. Good luck on your pedal!

[lovekraft0]

Mfd and mf were used in US electronics hobby magazines  as abbreviations for microfarad, presumably because most common press font sets lacked the micro character (µ - the Greek letter mu), and because millifarad rated caps were seldom (if ever) used in hobbyist audio or RF circuits. This practice was common at least as late as the early 80s, when I pretty much stopped reading those magazines.