Capacitor selection

[Bushbaby]

and a load of 'tropical fish' caps too. Its amazing what you can collect over time.

[Amie]

The C280 Mullard ones are the forerunner of the Phillips/Vishay orange drop polyester capacitors I think, good, though mechanically fragile, (leads break off easily...), OK for PCBs, The mustard ones are much better for point to point wiring.... Both types are good for supply decoupling, bypassing, and signal coupling.

[reset]

Hi All,
I hope you are having a good bank holiday.
I'm showing my naivety here, in building my amp clone the vast majority of capacitors I can see that have been used on early 70s models are silver mica. Is this an absolute must to use or can I use other forms of caps e.g. polyester, ceramic assuming that they are the correct value and voltage?

Best Regards

This guy gives a lot of info in his short video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67M7fsbLUIU

[ppppenguin]

Provided they are the right value and used within their voltage ratings the "mustard" and "tropical fish" caps can be used for most purposes in radios, amps and TVs. You wouldn't usually use them in tuned circuits, the capacitance would be too large for most purposes. Also don't use them across the mains or high energy pulse circuits.

They are utterly reliable unless you overvolt them or physically damage them

As others have said, it's a bit too easy to rip the wires off the C280 (tropical fish). They were designed for PCB mounting but can be used with care on tagboard.