From Daryl Posnett Sent Tue, Jul 7th 1998, 00:33
>someone was recently talking about replacing electolytic caps with >tantalum, which process I'd never heard of, but I assume, based on the >paucity of "YOU CAN'T DO THAT" posts, that this is possible, even >recommended? are tantalum caps polarized? > >I'm trying to revive the manual shifting side of an old Bad Stone, and I >suspect the electrolytic caps, but the values aren't available at Radio >Sack; my general question is this: I know I can go higher with volts, but >can I try a higher value of capacitance? if so, how high? (in this case, >the one I really suspect is 1 microfarad 50 volts, but the only 50 volter >RS has is 100 microfarads) First off, 50 volts is probably overkill in the badstone. I'm guessing this runs off of a 9 volt battery ? You won't want to replace a 1mf with 100mf that more than likely won't work. You can put them in series to reduce capacitance and increase voltage, i.e. two 5 mfd, 16 v caps in series becomes 2.5mfd at 32 volts. That said there is probably no reason why you can't stick a tantalum cap in there. Yes they are polarized. If it were mine, I'd stuff a 1mfd 16v cap in there to see if it came back to life. My last tip of the day is that old tape decks are a veritable storehouse of functional small value caps and can usually be had for next to nothing. > >my other question is where can I mail order very small quantities of >electronic components? > Wow, lot's of places but I can't think of anything other than digikey off the top of my head. Daryl