noob Q: Tantalum caps

[Al Heeley]

I'm building an octave fuzz circuit that calls for a 0.1uF film cap, an I ok replacing that with a tantalum 0.1uf cap, as thats the only 0.1uF cap I have? Does it matter that Tant caps are polarised and the circuit calls for a film cap?

[R.G.]

Unfortunately, it depends. Tantalum being polarized, they *will* fail if you have a DC voltage across them the wrong way, even intermittently.

So look at your circuit and see if one side of the capacitor is held to a positive voltage. If it is, put the + terminal of the tantalum there and everything's fine except that the tolerance of tantalum is worse than film.

If there is 0V dc across the cap, tantalum will slowly go bad. If there is DC and the tantalum is put in backwards, it will go bad quickly.

[Al Heeley]

ok thx, safer I think to put an order in for some new film caps