Sunking 2 tantalum capacitor

[Strassercaster]

hello i am almost done building the sunking 2 . i think the 1uf tantalum goes in the c11 spot but i am not positive. can any one confirm this for me? also tantalums are polarized correct? if so which way does it go? if i put it in wrong will it still work or can i blow a chip? please and thank you in advance

[Strassercaster]

i also have a question about the clip mod. which setup is for assymetrical clipping?

[RobA]

hello i am almost done building the sunking 2 . i think the 1uf tantalum goes in the c11 spot but i am not positive. can any one confirm this for me? also tantalums are polarized correct? if so which way does it go? if i put it in wrong will it still work or can i blow a chip? please and thank you in advance

C17 is the polarized tantalum cap. The PCB has a + on it to indicate the orientation of the cap. You need to check your specific cap to see how it indicates the orientation. In general, you really don't want to reverse bias a tantalum cap. They blow very easily under reverse bias. If it did blow in this circuit, it shouldn't be catastrophic to any IC's. It would mess up the audio though. Tantalum caps tend to blow as a dead short and that would end up at the very least running the low frequency clean bypass signal to ground.

[Strassercaster]

thanks i figured it out right after i posted soldering stuff at 3 am isnt ideAl . thank you very much i accidentally used an electrolytic so i was like where does this tantalum go oh boy feel stupid now ha ha. hey actually i read tantLums arent as reliable? also hpw much different woulf the tantalum sound than a electrolytic? if nothing than why even use a tantalum.thanks again.

[pickdropper]

thanks i figured it out right after i posted soldering stuff at 3 am isnt ideAl . thank you very much i accidentally used an electrolytic so i was like where does this tantalum go oh boy feel stupid now ha ha. hey actually i read tantLums arent as reliable? also hpw much different woulf the tantalum sound than a electrolytic? if nothing than why even use a tantalum.thanks again.

Tantalums tend to be more reliable than electrolytics.  Why would you use a single tantalum when the rest of the pedal uses electrolytics?  Only the Unicorn knows.

[RobA]

It depends on what you mean by reliable. Tantalums blow more easily than electrolytics for sure. Old electrolytics dried out and failed with age more easily (or at least it seems so). New electrolytics that are good quality don't seem to have this issue.

As a general thing, tantalum capacitors have no business ever being in an audio path of a circuit. They suck for this use. Same thing could be said for electros, but there are at least some electrolytics designed for use in audio when you have no other choice because you need a big value cap.

In this case however, if you are really trying to recreate the original circuit, the tantalum would be the more appropriate choice. The frequency responses of the two types of caps are actually going to be a little bit different. They'll have different ESR's for example. Having said that though, the specific model of cap is going to have about as much influence on the sound if it gets down to things like ESR.

Short answer is that if I were happy with the way it sounds with the electro, I wouldn't bother changing it out to a tantalum. Even if I weren't all that happy, I doubt if I'd bother changing it out. I'd probably only bother if I were dead set on recreating the original as completely as possible.

[Strassercaster]

thanks roba and pickdropper much appreciated

[pickdropper]

It depends on what you mean by reliable. Tantalums blow more easily than electrolytics for sure. Old electrolytics dried out and failed with age more easily (or at least it seems so). New electrolytics that are good quality don't seem to have this issue.

More reliable assuming they are installed correctly.  You are absolutely right that they are more prone to blowing (although I have never had that happen).

Electros can dry out if they use any sort of liquid dielectric.  The new ones are much better than in the past, but tantalums still have a longer rated mean time between failures.

That aside, I agree with everything else you said.

[RobA]

It depends on what you mean by reliable. Tantalums blow more easily than electrolytics for sure. Old electrolytics dried out and failed with age more easily (or at least it seems so). New electrolytics that are good quality don't seem to have this issue.

More reliable assuming they are installed correctly.  You are absolutely right that they are more prone to blowing (although I have never had that happen).

Electros can dry out if they use any sort of liquid dielectric.  The new ones are much better than in the past, but tantalums still have a longer rated mean time between failures.

That aside, I agree with everything else you said.

I've blown a couple of tantalum caps while breadboarding. I've blown a few electrolytics on breadboard too. The electros did take longer to blow up. That tants die nearly instantly. The electros take a bit of time but when they do blow it's much more dramatic -- and loud.

I've also read that the new generation of tantalums designed for SMD use have been significantly improved. I haven't followed up on reading about them yet though, so I'm not sure what's supposed to have been improved. I've used tantalum caps in the power section of the last couple of PCB's I've done because the regulator specifically calls for tantalum caps. I'll say that they have worked perfectly and they are tiny for the capacitance they have. They're even easier to solder than the SMD electros and much smaller.

[madbean]

thanks i figured it out right after i posted soldering stuff at 3 am isnt ideAl . thank you very much i accidentally used an electrolytic so i was like where does this tantalum go oh boy feel stupid now ha ha. hey actually i read tantLums arent as reliable? also hpw much different woulf the tantalum sound than a electrolytic? if nothing than why even use a tantalum.thanks again.

Tantalums tend to be more reliable than electrolytics.  Why would you use a single tantalum when the rest of the pedal uses electrolytics?  Only the Unicorn knows.

If you isolate just that section and listen to the audio through, it is quite low compared to everything else due to the large roll-off. Even if there was some slight difference in caps due to ESR I don't see how anyone could tell the difference. Except Zeus himself, perhaps!