Best Capacitors

I call them audio-phools.

I use a lot of 0.1u, 12/15/18/22pf. And once in a blue moon, I use 1n or 11n.

Thanks! I will buy those values.

And 1uF is the only ceramic caps I use for general purpose.

For higher voltages and decoupling, use also Electrolytic.

4.7uF also.

Or something like this: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Caps-Electrolytic-and-Ceramic-Assortment-3-Qty-610-/310571903629?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item484f872a8d

Bought from both of these guys. Jameco I have bought their transistor, diode, and 74LS kits. The cheapo chinese dudes, capacitor kits and resistor kits.

http://www.jameco.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Product_10001_10001_130232_-1 (Jameco has very fast shipping, typically same day, will get it to you quickly, very reptuable.)

http://www.ebay.com/itm/50value-1000pcs-Ceramic-Capacitors-Disc-50V-Assortment-Kit-/251204208418 (excellent value, low cost barrier, may take 2 weeks to get to you.)

http://www.ebay.com/itm/36value-3600pcs-Ceramic-Capacitors-Disc-50V-Assortment-Box-Kit-/251120210678 (very good value but more expensive for a larger kit, may take 2 weeks to get to you.)

A few other interesting capacitor kits:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/24value-400pcs-Polyester-poly-Film-Capacitors-Assortment-Box-Kit-100V-5-/261075701166
http://www.ebay.com/itm/36value-1000pcs-Electrolytic-Capacitor-Assortment-Box-Kit-/261098612334
http://www.ebay.com/itm/15value-450pcs-50V-Monolithic-Ceramic-Chip-Mono-Capacitor-Assortment-Box-Kit-/261074256547

I use 10, 22, 47, 100, 220, 470uF electrolytics all the time. For bigger projects (mostly audio amps) I use 2200uF in parallel. I keep in my stash a complete assortment: 0.1, 1, 4.7, 10, 22, 47, 100, 220, 470, 1000, and 2200uF. I keep 25v and 50v varieties up to 1000uF, and 35v and 50v for 1000uF+. Although, due to size and cost, I'll often order the larger ones per-project. Remember, electrolytic caps age, so order in smallish batches and FIFO them.

The only ceramics I ever seem to use are 100nF for decoupling, 20-27pF for crystal load caps, and 470pF for the timing circuit on a particular switching regulator I use. I haven't found a need to have an assortment, although that could just be my usual areas of design interest.

I did order a bunch of mains-rated ceramic caps for power switch arc prevention, but I have yet to use any. I ordered way too many different sizes here. One or two to pick from would've sufficed. They just take up space in my kit now.

I was about to order, but I did not know what tolerance is good: 1% 5% 10% 20% ? What would you recommend?

I would think 5-10% tolerance would be ok for general use, tinkering and experimenting. Don't pay over the odds for precision you don't need.

Thanks! I will go for 5%.

Capacitor tolerances are usually way less precise than resistor tolerances and that's OK because generally we are using them to get some decoupling done or to keep a crystal oscillating. I am not sure you can get 1% except in polystyrene and other exotic construction caps which are limited to pretty small values and expensive. 10% is good unless the circuit calls for a precision part which I have just not seen in digital electronics so far. Probably there are more applications for it on the analog side.

My electrolytics are all Nichicon VR -- 20% tolerance. In most cases, these are bulk supply caps, so anything within a country mile of spec is just fine. In the cases where they are timing caps, they are timing circuits where the margin for error is likewise large. Otherwise, I would use a dedicated timer of some sort. Typically, it's more like an AC loss detector or 555-based flasher.

The ceramics I buy are 5% I think. For decoupling, it doesn't matter at all. For crystals, I like to keep them within 10% tops -- less if possible. In my audio circuits, I use Wima film caps at 5% tolerance, because the 1% parts are more expensive, and in some cases (filters) I would have to use really low values for the precision parts to be available at all. This leads to higher parasitic capacitance influence, and thus a loss of that perfect 0.1% tolerance I paid so much for.

I buy 1% resistors (except the 1W+ ones) because they're cheap, and then my inventory serves me well for both moderate precision and general-purpose use.

best website for cheap shit is www.taydaelectronics.com

standard NPN transistors for 13c, 555 timers for 10c, this place is a goldmine.
I had to buy 600 LEDs for my LED cube. I live in ireland, and to buy them from radionics here it would have cost me 140 euros. From tayda, it only cost 36! and that included shipping from HK!
great website/shop.

retrolefty:
Just be thankful your not trying to enter into the world of 'golden ear' audiophiles. They select and buy their capacitors as if they are rare vintages of wine.

http://www.dedicatedaudio.com/capacitors

V-Cap capacitors - VH Audio

Compare products from over 25,000 stores

Ha. Ha. What a bunch of tools.

eriknyquist:
best website for cheap shit is www.taydaelectronics.com

standard NPN transistors for 13c, 555 timers for 10c, this place is a goldmine.
I had to buy 600 LEDs for my LED cube. I live in ireland, and to buy them from radionics here it would have cost me 140 euros. From tayda, it only cost 36! and that included shipping from HK!
great website/shop.

I love them but they do not do pre-made kits and you can find better buys on the same items sometimes by looking over reputable eBay sellers with 1000+ sales. I've put together a couple of "kits" of inductors (my two LRC meters says their inductors are pretty loose on their numbers too) and caps with them and it's a bit of a pain. With that said, they are great, ship out of Colorado, and get it to me in under 7 days usually. I think they aggregate out there in Colorado so a lot of this is in the USA when they ship.

JoeN:

retrolefty:
Just be thankful your not trying to enter into the world of 'golden ear' audiophiles. They select and buy their capacitors as if they are rare vintages of wine.

http://www.dedicatedaudio.com/capacitors

V-Cap capacitors - VH Audio

Compare products from over 25,000 stores

Ha. Ha. What a bunch of tools.

I actually consider many audiophiles (aka golden ears) 'victims' that are feed upon by rather unscrupulous electronic suppliers that know better but can't help relaxing their morals for the temptation of high margins/easy profits that selling to such a population can be had. Many such audiophiles have a high emotional attachment to their love of music and the audio equipment they use to playback their music on.

As I said they give electronic components and circuits the same emotional attributes one might give to wine or art appreciation. When told about measurements (or even well run double blind hearing tests) not supporting such opinions on such 'magic component' they will just say that you are not measuring the right thing or that measurements can never substitute for one's refined hearing properties.

But in most cases such people can certainly afford their rather uneducated technical opinions with a higher then normal 'disposable income', so it's not surprising that there are people that will encourage such beliefs just for the easy profits. So as I said they are in many cases as much victims just succuming to other audiophile peer pressure and the technical gobbly gook that certain predatory electronic dealers are happy to feast upon.

Lefty

Depends on what you want to do with them.

Electrolytic caps are usually higher values (in the microfarad to thousands of microfarad range) and are used for low frequency filtering and power supplies. They, however, have a relatively high ESR and are useless at high frequencies, making them worthless for bypass capacitors.

Mylar and ceramic caps are much better as bypass caps, have a much lower ESR and lower leakage, but are only available in the picofarad to fractions of a microfarad range.

Which capacitor you use depends on what you need to do... there is no one "universal" type.

Radio Shack. The prices aren't that great, but if you only need a few and you're in a hurry, that's the place to get them.

+1 for ebay. Something like this would be a good start:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1000-Pcs-50-Values-Ceramic-Disc-Capacitors-Kits-New-/130485675439?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item1e618d65af

1000 caps and 50 different values for $6. There's lots of different cap assortments available. Don't go too crazy, as caps are so cheap that (to me) it's easier to just add whatever caps you need the order when buying other parts for a project. Having an assortment on hand to "try things out" is good, though.

JoshD:
+1 for ebay. Something like this would be a good start:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1000-Pcs-50-Values-Ceramic-Disc-Capacitors-Kits-New-/130485675439?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item1e618d65af

1000 caps and 50 different values for $6. There's lots of different cap assortments available. Don't go too crazy, as caps are so cheap that (to me) it's easier to just add whatever caps you need the order when buying other parts for a project. Having an assortment on hand to "try things out" is good, though.

Just what I needed, 20 1pf caps, never going to run out of that popular value ever again. :smiley:

Lefty

retrolefty:
Just what I needed, 20 1pf caps, never going to run out of that popular value ever again. :smiley:

Lefty

Yeah, but it was only a dollar more than the smaller assortments... They get me like that on ebay all the time.

"I know I only need one ne555, but for another dollar I can have 10!"