[sdiy] Substituting Caps

[Tim Ressel]

Ethan,

Good question. It depends on the circuit. If the caps
are used across the power supply to decouple it, the
there is no problem using electrolytics. However if
the circuit is a slow timing circuit like an LFO or
ADSR, then the tentalum is nessessary.

The issue is leakage. Electrolytics tend to have a bit
of leakage. You don't notice this when they are
bypassing power supplies. But if you try to charge one
really slowly, the leakage starts cancelling out the
small charging current. Eventually the current gets
low enough that the leakage swamps it, and no charging
occurs. Tantalum have much lower leakage, so they work
much better in these types of circuits.

Hope that helps.

--Tim


--- Ethan Zer0 <ethanzer0 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Hi to everyone!
> 
> Is it safe to substitute Aluminum Electrolytic Caps
> for Tantalum?
> 
> TIA,
> 
> Ethan
>  
> 
> 
> 
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