Capacitor

[Jeff-7]

I didn't know what a capacitor was until a friend handed me one off of his '55 Chevy truck. The muscles in my neck and shoulders were sore for 3 days.

[MrNylon]

You guys should talk to some of the guys on the G&L site about capacitors. The guys with the active bases have a fixation with the things.

[heymisterk]

THIS has been most-educational! You never can tell what thread is going to take off. I generally get the concept now, which is more than I could say a couple of hours ago.

[Riverside]

You guys should talk to some of the guys on the G&L site about capacitors. The guys with the active bases have a fixation with the things.

 

Different value caps do different things to the sound - because that's what they do.

 

I just think that any one of a given value couldn't possibly "sound" better than any other one of the same value - as they don't "sound" at all.

 

Some folks spend hundreds of dollars on power cables, too. Then they plug into the same mis-wired wall jack that they've used for years.

 

Go figure.

[TommyK]

A capacitor is like a dam on a river. Bigger capacitors can do more than smaller ones.

 

How they're made is rather immaterial, regardless of what the guys who'd like to charge you $100 for some old ones (or worse yet, ones that only look old) have to say about it.

 

Read this:

 

http://www.tone-lizard.com/Electronic_Parts.htm

 

Riverside, you're getting your resisters mixed up with your capacitors.

 

Capacitors make the think work. That's why when something doesn't work it's called in-capacitated.

 

There are a couple types of caps you're likely to see in a guitar ceramic and electrolytic. Ceramic ones look like large ticks. They are earthenware colored, round and less than a 1/4" diameter and flatened with two legs or leads. Eletrolytics are canister like and look like a small battery. Some have leads on either end or two leads on one. The electolytics have a liquid inside which leaks out when they get over heated.

 

I've heard it explained like this. A capacitor is like a rechargeable battery. It holds electricity for a time then releases it. On the TV show McGyver, he once made a HUGE capacitor out of two sheets of steel and a sheet of plastic placed in between. Place a negative wire from an outlet on one sheet of steel and the positive on the other. The two pieces of metal should not touch, otherwise you'll have a dead short. The capacitor soaks up the electricity and holds it as static electricity until a circuit between the two pieces of steel is completed. i.e. you get the bad guys to touch both pieces or wires connected from each one so that the bad guy completes the circuit and is incapacitated.

 

In the olden days of points and condensers, the condenser was a capacitor. For you young bucks points are a switch under the distributor that determines when electricity flows from the engine's electrical system to the spark plugs in order to generate a spark. We used to call today's ignition systems 'breakerless' ignition systems to differentiate from the older breaker point ignitions. The way it was explained in Points and Condensers 101, was that when the points opened, the spinning engine continued to generate electricity. The electricity has to go somewhere so it goes into the capacitor. Then when the points close, it completes the circuit and electricity flows out of the capacitor. It acts as a shock absorber to the electrical system to minimize arcing when the points open and close. This makes the points last longer by slowing the burn rate from the arcing.

 

Not sure how this affects a guitar circuitry. Maybe someone else can chime in.

[TommyK]

I didn't know what a capacitor was until a friend handed me one off of his '55 Chevy truck. The muscles in my neck and shoulders were sore for 3 days.

 

Not sure if you are referring to the coil. It's a canister about the size of a Barbasol can. Has a spark plug like socket on top and a couple screws on the side. It stepped up the voltage of 12 and 6 volt systems to about 60,000 volts for the ignition system. Back before my time, 1950's, gear heads would wire them, somehow, so that they could throw a switch on the dash and charge the car's body with this high voltage. I heard an old timer say the practical joker would flip the switch to charge the body, then call a friend over to converse with him through the car window. Invariably the one called over would rest his arm on the top of the car door and you could see a blue flame the length of the victim's fore arm. And yup, your arm would be sore for a day or two afterward.

[Jeff-7]

Not sure if you are referring to the coil. It's a canister about the size of a Barbasol can. Has a spark plug like socket on top and a couple screws on the side. It stepped up the voltage of 12 and 6 volt systems to about 60,000 volts for the ignition system. Back before my time, 1950's, gear heads would wire them, somehow, so that they could throw a switch on the dash and charge the car's body with this high voltage. I heard an old timer say the practical joker would flip the switch to charge the body, then call a friend over to converse with him through the car window. Invariably the one called over would rest his arm on the top of the car door and you could see a blue flame the length of the victim's fore arm. And yup, your arm would be sore for a day or two afterward.

I think that is what it was, but he had it out in his hands and it only completed the circuit after he handed it to me and i touched a couple different spots on it. All the muscles locked up from both my hands up through my neck, felt like someone had punched me right in the neck and got some nerves. Took a while for that soreness to pass.

[NeoConMan]

That was an ignition coil.

I have plenty of stories with 'em myself...

 

 

 

 

 

 

As said before, capacitors related to guitar circuitry?

I dunno fer sure.

 

I always wondered if the capacitance was designed to overcome a scratchy pot and keep current consistent.

Turn the knob and the current changes, but smoothly.

 

????????????

 

 

My understanding is that a capacitor is like a battery with a very short lifespan.

A certain amount of current flows through it at all times, and when the current drops below this fixed value there is some held in reserve that can be released to cover the gap. Slight variations in current (even brief but complete interruptions) can be seamlessly concealed and the circuitry downstream benefits from a reliable and accurately controlled source.

The time span that it does this is well within a second, but might make all the difference in the world.

 

Older stereos, TVs, etc, you could hear a "pop" after you turned them off - a second or two later.

Capacitors discharging.

 

There's my layman's $0.02.

[Jeff-7]

That was an ignition coil.

I have plenty of stories with 'em myself...

 

 

Yeah, needless to say it scared the bejeezus out of me.

[TommyK]

Capacitors can go bad. When they do you either get no current going through them and nothing works or you get a dead short through them and it all works, but without the shock absorbing feature of the capacitor. When a switch makes and breaks continuity, you get a big arc. In a sound system you get a huge pop when you flip the on/off switch. A pick-up selector switch is essentially an on/off switch. It simultaneously breaks one connection while making another connection as you cycle it from on position to another. Each make and break causes an arc and unprotected by a capacitor makes a bigger arc and a louder pop in audio systems. With a working cap, you get a smaller arc and a smaller pop. It is nigh on impossible to eliminate the pops completely. This is why you shouldn't plug a guitar into an amp while it they are both switched on. The plug is acting as the switch as it makes a connection, or breaks a connection and sockets and plugs are not generally protected by a capacitor. Therefore a BIG POP!

 

Pick-ups and microphones are switches, in their own funky little way.

[Riffster]

Capacitors can make a difference in the sound of your guitar, what you like is for you to decide.

 

As for the cloth wire or vintage wire a lot of times is not just cosmetic, that wire has a thicker gauge then some of the crappy cable used on the Gibson USA line. Wire gauge does make a difference in sound.

 

On the caps, I bought my R8 earlier this year, I know they come with fake bees so I tried other 3 capacitors by unsoldering one side of the stock cap and then using aligator clips to secure the capacitor you want to try.

 

-I tried a 1950's Tiger paper in oil but to my dissapointment the cap is bad, the sound was slugish, killed the reponse of the guitar.

-Then I tried Mojo oil caps that worked great on my Explorer, I did not like'em in my LP, sound became spongy, yes, spongy whatever that means.

-Then I tried a polyester cap from the 1970's and it was alright but not better than the stock cap.

 

I know people will have they opinons but the best way is to try for yourself.

 

My Les Paul Vintage Mahognay has Orange Drops and I like them in that guitar.

[NeoConMan]

Yeah, needless to say it scared the bejeezus out of me.

I've never been smacked on the elbow with a ball-peen hammer, but I think I know what it would feel like.

 

7th grade wood shop, teacher had a lawn mower engine bolted to a rebuild stand.

Encouraged us to form a circle and hold hands.

Of course that's really gay for 7th grade boys to do, so it took some coaxing.

 

 

Once we were all in a circle (and distracted by feeling so gay) he had one guy hold the spark plug while

the guy on the other end of the circle was holding the plug wire. Pulled the starter rope to spin the motor over...

 

The magneto creates current as soon as it rotates, and the coil boosts it to tens of thousands of volts.

Getting hit on the elbows with a fxcking hammer would have been a nice alternative.

And we suddenly forgot how gay we were.

 

Shop teachers know how to play with adolescent boys and their growing vanity...

 

[badbluesplayer]

Capacitors store up electricity until they have a certain amount stored up, then they let it go all at once in one big jolt. They're like a bucket of water that slowly gets filled up until it reaches its capacity, then the bucket dumps out all at once. Or like a thunder cloud that stores up a bunch of current and then discharges it all at once through lightning.

 

They're like Van Der Graph generators, where the charge gets stored up and then when the voltage is high enough, the thing discharges in one big spark:

 

Capacitors are used for different things. In electric fence chargers, they use capacitors to store up a bunch of current, and then when it reaches a certain amount, the cap discharges and zaps the fence and anything that's touching it. In guitars, they're used to allow high frequncy signals through the circuit while blocking the low frequencies. They're used in conjunction with the tone control to block the lows. Change the size of the cap and it changes the frequency that gets blocked at any given tone setting. Change the tone knob and it changes the voltage to the cap, thus changing how well it blocks the lows.

 

If the tone caps in a guitar were replaced with jumper wires, the tone control would work like another volume control.

[damian]

I am thankful for this thread, as I have much to learn; ah, I don't have the CAPACITY to grasp this all yet, but I find it shocking..

 

I rarely use any tone or volume knobs on any guitars except when recording....but I want to learn and understand what they do, why, and how...as such, thankyou for this thread and your posts.

[TommyK]

...

Shop teachers know how to play with adolescent boys and their growing vanity...

 

 

 

Yeah, but it toughened you up.

 

I suspect if a teacher'd try that today, he'd be in the hoosegow. The the principal, superintendent, and school board would be severally, and individually sued.

 

We live in such a soft world.

[djroge1]

If your tone control is all the way up then there is virtually no current passing thru the cap making it in effect, useless.

 

Also, caps have a break in time as well meaning that they will sound better after a certain amount of hours of use.

 

I use a Zoso cap on a certain amp I build and those take about 100 hours to break in.

[Riverside]

There sure is a lot of comparing apples to oranges interspersed with the horsehockey in this thread.

 

Go out and get you some black-cat bone and hop around shouting "ooga booga booga"!

 

It'll make you guitar sound just great.

 

I give up.

[badbluesplayer]

There sure is a lot of comparing apples to oranges interspersed with the horsehockey in this thread.

 

Go out and get you some black-cat bone and hop around shouting "ooga booga booga"!

 

It'll make you guitar sound just great.

 

I give up.

 

My favorite caps are Hokum, Bolognatone, Placebone and BLKCTBONE. These are snakeoil and paper types.

[Riffster]

Caps do make a difference (notice I say "difference") what's better is up to you to decide.

 

If you don't believe in some of the hyped caps out there that's fine but do not discard the whole idea based on that.

 

I have not bought real bees because I don't want to fork out all that money to see if I like them. I may not.

[NeoConMan]

Good job BBP.

 

Swapped the cheapo capacitors in my Les Paul Classic with some different orange thingies years ago.

(Actually, a luthier did it after explaining how it would fix my "issue" with the guitar.)

 

Made tone cut faster.