Capacitor

TamDB

Hi all, can anyone out there tell me the value of this capacitor / resistor (?), and if it would be any use (at all) in a guitar or bass.

http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x192/TamBaird/Capacitor.jpg

I think i`ve read somewhere that you can use 1uF in guitar electrics, but this appears to be 1u0 or something, so i`m curious, any advice greatly appreciated, cheers, Tam.

WezV

http://www.repeater-builder.com/tech-info/capacitance-table.html

a centered "U" indicates microfarads, as in "1U0" = 1.0 Microfarad. Just insert a decimal point for the "U" and call it µf. Likewise 2U2=2.2 µf.

ecc83

That is a "mustard" capacitor and they are a bit sought after (for no good, provable reason!) .

They do have a reputation for reliability In 40 years of radio and TV repair I cannot ever recall one failing electrically . Hunts, Sprague, Wima (famous for shorting in Grundig tape recorders) all went s/c or leaky but never a mustard.

However, that cap' is just starting to show a crack at its left hand edge and if mechanically stressed the ends could come off. Replace it with a modern plastic film type, if it is inside a guitar, 100V working would be a massive overkill !

Dave.

TamDB

Hi guys, thanks for the replies, no Dave it`s not in a guitar, there`s 2 of them, and they are on an old Fane HPX2 high pass filter which fell out of an old speaker cab I got hold of recently, and as I have no use for it i was just curious as to whether they would work in a guitar or bass.

I think they are actually 160V so i`m assuming that would be even bigger overkill, so probably not much use for that then  , cheers, Tam.

ICBM

Not very useful. 1uF is ten times the value of the tone cap in any guitar I know of (old Strats) and even that's on the large side. You could maybe try it as a tone cap in something with a *huge* pickup which needs a very big tone cap to make much audible difference (eg a Gibson bass with a neck humbucker) but even then I would expect to find it a bit too much.

It's also not particularly useful for most amp applications because the voltage rating isn't high enough - you need 400V for most positions in valve amps, and higher in a few. (Including PI to power valve coupling caps, which are some of the only ones I have occasionally found failed caps of this type.) It might be useful for a cathode bypass cap in a preamp stage, but that's about it - and that's not a tone-affecting position for a cap anyway.

The reason they're sought-after is simply because they were used in vintage British amps...

GuitarMonkey

I remember them being included in my Philips EE 1050 Compact electronic Engineer Kit that I got for Christmas in about 1970

TamDB

Hi guys, thanks for all the replies, it doesn`t look a though they`re going to be any use to me so if anyone out there wants them they can have them for the price of a pint, (or thereabouts), I would just send the whole unit, (a Fane HPX2 high pass filter), which has 2 of these on there, here`s a couple of pics:

http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x192/TamBaird/DSCF0363.jpg

http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x192/TamBaird/DSCF0364.jpg

frankus

Interesting fact (that's actually not a fact but a small joke)

in Greece they call it a ϰθ

ICBM

frankus said:

Interesting fact (that's actually not a fact but a small joke)

in Greece they call it a ϰθ

Surely that's Spain, since it has a lithp?