Modular Synth Panels

On 5/24/08, Scott Deyo put forth:
>>  I wondering about that myself. What advantage is there to tantalum??
>>  Is it lower inductance?? I'm planning to use the same Xicon 10uF
>>  electrolytics used in MOTM. I've heard that when tantalum's fail
>>  they tend to fail short, while electrolytics tend to fail "open".
>
>Yeah, the tantalums short. Locked up my whole modular!

Yikes!!

>Funny (not really) -- I spent 15 minutes going over my SMD caps
>because my multimeter showed the power rails connected (and at that
>point it was not the tantalum). So after racking my brain and eyes,
>I figured it out -- I had killed my multimeter when I was testing
>the AC power in my bedroom light switch! Doh!

I once  blew a fuse in my meter trying to test a car battery.

Which SMD caps did you use??  I've never used SMD.  Afaik, SMD come
in different sizes -- from incredibly tiny to having to worry about a
rogue amoeba slithering off with your parts -- although I don't know
how the naming system works.  What is the largest size that will
still fit??


Also, after spending more time using the tube vca, I found the output
was not high enough to work well with other modules. So I changed the
feedback resistor of the output amp to 2.2K and added a 1K gain
resistor resulting in an output of around 8.6Vpp. This also improved
the range of sounds when using feedback (I normalled the output to
the second input using a switched jack).