quick Wah questions

[lerxst88]

1. how can i tell which direction capacitors are supposed to go?

2. is it ok if i have electrolytic caps?

3. i have closed-circuit panel mount output jacks for my wah pedal. i am using a dunlop gcb-95 enclosure. will the metal from the jack short out when it touches the metal on the pedal? any tips to avoid this?

thanks!

[axg20202]

1. if it's an electrolytic, then it has polarity in that one leg is positive and the other is negative. The negative leg of a (radial) electrolytic is marked on the body with a stripe, arrow or negative symbol running from top towards the leg. The positive side is blank and is usually indicated on schematics. Why the convention is to mark the cap negative leg while the schematic shows the positive leg is a mystery to me, but there you go. Film caps, ceramics etc can be inserted either way - it doesn't matter.

2. elecotrolytic caps are generally used in circuits because the film/ceramic (any non-polar cap) equivalent would be physically large for the level of capacitance required. For pedal building, everything of 1uF or more is usually an electrolytic and is probably shown on a schematic as having specific orientation (the + side is marked).  In general though, if you can find a non-electrolytic capacitor of the same value it can be used instead. I sometimes use 1uF film caps, but anything bigger and I always use an electro.

3. not 100% sure what you mean here. The nut, washer and barrel of the socket are all common with ground and the shaft of the jack plug of your cable, so in effect the enclosure gets connected to ground, which is what you want. As long as the 'tip' connection of the jack plug (carrying the signal) and the part of the socket intended to mate with it doesn't touch anything inside the enclosure you should be fine.

EDIT: what does this have to do with wahs? ;-)

[lerxst88]

now that i think of it it doesnt have to do specifically with wahs but im working on one now so i guess i just posted "wah questions". actually i have another thats been confusing to me.

in the dunlop gcb-95 wah, there is a big capacitor which all schematics say is supposed to be a 4.7 uF. i pulled the one out of mine and it says 220 uF. what?

[axg20202]

If it was a very low value it would be a problem. Feel free to swap in a 4.7uF. The key thing about this cap is that it has to be sufficiently large (clearly not a problem in your case, lol). When this cap fails (zero capacitance), it turns the wah into a volume pedal.

EDIT: maybe someone else can chime in here if there is an upper limit for this cap....

[lerxst88]

alright i found 2 4.7uF caps and theyre different sizes but both 50v. thats not gonna be a problem right?

also in this picture ( http://fuzzcentral.ssguitar.com/mccoy/mccoylayout.gif ) there is a 1K5 resistor and thats a 1k 5 band one right? also what does the 470R mean?

[axg20202]

50v is just the max voltage rating. Fine.

1K5 mean 1.5K

470R means 470 Ohms

[lerxst88]

thank you sir! lets hope it works once its wired up