[sdiy] Buying a large mix of capacitors. Need some advice

[harrybissell]

No I think you're going the right direction.

I stock mylar caps (polyester) in most values from .001uF to .1uF
Use these for good quality caps where you don;t need the best...
simple timing, filters etc.

I stock Polystyrene from 100pF to .01.  I bought two Xicon kits from
Mouser just to have a good range of values.

I use .1uF 50V axial caps for decoupling

Add an assortment of electrolytics any you're good to go. I use the
Bipolar
(non-polar) lytics from 1uF to 10uF for audio coupling (buy the cheaper
ones, you are not likely to abuse them with high ripple current unless
you're doing a speaker
crossover :^).

Some 1uF tantalums would be good to have. (avoid larger values, they get
very
expensive as values or voltages go up)

Buy 50V or 100V.  imho it does not make a rat's @ss of difference. I do
not hold with those who say that using a capacitor at too LOW of a voltage
causes premature failure.
That would ONLY apply to lytics anyway... and they would only fail if you
ran them at low voltage for years, then suddenly increased the voltage !!!

I think I spent a couple hundred bucks on caps, probably a lifetime
supply. Its SO
easy to work with all the common values in neat bins next to you. The BINS
are neat...the workbench is messier than YOURS. YOU know who you are :^P

H^) harry

Jeff Farr wrote:

> I'm sick of getting to the breadboard only to realize I'm missing the
> right value of cap to do anything.  I've assembled a large list of
> caps at mouser, but have a few questions.  I selected the values
> largely by looking through almost every schem I have, but I see that
> many of them are 50v caps whereas mouser stocks 100v.  My first though
> is 'no problem', but I seem to remember reading something about this
> somewhere.  Is there going to be a difference?  Is there a better way
> to get bulk caps?