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DIY Stompboxes => Building your own stompbox => Topic started by: pinkjimiphoton on December 23, 2012, 10:24:02 PM

Title: dumb neeb cap voltage question (eh polyphase)
Post by: pinkjimiphoton on December 23, 2012, 10:24:02 PM
hey guys, probably a dumb question, but here goes:

i have an old EH polyphase on my bench, working on it for a friend who doesn't have a lot of money.
a musician...yep.
anyways, i fixed a whole bag of crap for him tonite. some was operator error..
a dano cool cat chorus won't light up at 9v no matter what ya do..
and some was mechanical failure...a nice maestro bass brassmaster with a bum footswitch.

the poly phase had a couple issues...one of the coupling caps had pulled free from the pcb (factory f-up) and a wire had come loose from the envelope/sweep switch.

i have achieved sweep, i have achieved envelope, but it's fairly garbled and distorted sounding  as it passes signal, and the effect is extremely weak.

i haven't bothered to write down voltages yet, cuz i'm figuring a nearly 30 year old pedal, the electros are cheese...so i wanna replace 'em all first.

so here's my dillema..it doesn't have all that many electros to deal with, which is good. i have most of 'em in stock here. but a couple i only have in a 16v rating.

now i know a cap should be able to withstand a "surge" voltage of about 1/2 it's rating. this thing's transformer is pumping about 20 volts, and i'm getting 15v from the output of the regulator. so i'm assuming that parts ok.

here's the question..can i get away with using 16v rated caps in there, or should i hit him up for bread to get 35v ones? they're rated just a little higher than the B+ supply... do you think it will be alright to use them in this application?

thanks for the advice. i really need to get this off my bench so i can get on to some paying jobs i've been neglecting.
Title: Re: dumb neeb cap voltage question (eh polyphase)
Post by: PRR on December 23, 2012, 10:54:18 PM
16V caps in a regulated 15V application may last long enough for him to score more bread. Months, years, decades.
Title: Re: dumb neeb cap voltage question (eh polyphase)
Post by: Mark Hammer on December 23, 2012, 11:03:15 PM
A lot of the electros in the Polyphase are simply pasing audio, in which case the AC signal level will only be maybe a volt or so at most....well under the 16v rating.  Personall y, I wouldn't stick a 16v rated cap on the power supply, but for the audio path, you're good to go.
Title: Re: dumb neeb cap voltage question (eh polyphase)
Post by: pinkjimiphoton on December 23, 2012, 11:08:35 PM
sweet...thanks paul and mark.

the power supply caps i'm good to go with 50/100v caps. it's just some of the caps in the audio path i was worried bout.

good to go now..thanks you guys!