newbie question

[sonicparke]

I was looking into building the AMZ mini-booster using Torchy veroboad layout and I'm not sure what a couple of the parts are.  R4 is 100R and R6 is 100K-A.  What does the R and the -A mean?

Also one of the caps is 47nF.  I was looking at smallbears stocklist to order parts and all he shows is a 47mf.  What's the difference?

Is there a tutorial laid out somewhere for this pedal with the best parts for this particular pedal?

[Peter Snowberg]

100R is the same as 100 ohms.

The 100KA means a 100K pot with an audio or logrithmic taper. Log taper pots are better for volume controls because they more closely match the response of human hearing to loudness.

47nF is the same as 0.047µF.

The nF means nanoFarad, which is one billionth of one farad or 1 one thousandth of a microfarad. A picofarad is 1000 times smaller.

I'm guessing the 47mF cap in Steve's catalog must be a 47µF. Micro is often substututed with the Greek letter Mu... 'µ'.... but not all typewriters (or computers) have the letter Mu so people use 'mF' for microFarad.

47mF is the same as 47000nF.

[sonicparke]

Thanks, Peter.  That helps a lot.  It's going to take me a bit to grasp it but I will.

[Peter Snowberg]

It's confusing when the same thing is called two things, but you could also correctly refer to it by six other names.  :shock:  :?

After some practice that you'll naturally get by building things, it will all sink in and you'll have no trouble.

I sure wish I had a place like this when I started out.

[sonicparke]

This place really is great!  It's a HUGE help.

I was putting together an order list from Smallbear and There are 4 different type of caps to choose from.  How do I know which caps are the best for which application?  I've noticed that some values are not present under some of the types of caps.  Which ones should I be looking for?

[nelson]

This page will tell you everything you need to know about which capacitors to choose.


http://www.generalguitargadgets.com/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=169&Itemid=200


Scroll down a bit for the info.


Good Luck!

Paul,