Mystery Diodes? Caps?

[duck_arse]

a ciggie lighter might be a bit ... err .... too much. and it strikes me that the germanium FF's are temperature sensitive, I wonder what could be used to fixx that problem ........

[anotherjim]

I've saved Ben the trouble and tested the lighter/thermistor AND a lighter/capacitor. Both result in an equivalent carbon comp resistor about 1Mohm in parallel with a 5pF capacitor. On the input to a FF (Standard TatboredFX.com layout), the sound was shrill to say the least. Using the guitars controls sounded scratchy. Also it smelt funny. YMMV.

[Ben Lyman]

Okay, but these things that I have... they are caps, right? The markings, the look, the function: caps?
I ask because I have only just googled thermistor and don't really know what they are. A resistor that increases resistance when heated up, or something like that?
I didn't think my FF could possibly work without the input cap, let alone any kind of resistor in it's place.
How about this test:

I put the (mystery) part in place of the FF input cap on my bread board.
Start playing guitar and turn up the volume a bit.
Then heat up the part and see if the volume goes down.

[Ben Lyman]

I just went back and bought the remaining 1000 of these for $3
Hope it's worth it lol