Capacitors - which one to use?

[Alex]

Hi

due me being totally inept at refitting electronics I need to put new capacitors into my Voodoo LesPaul. The ones in there are too short to reach the distance between the potis properly.

I have found the following capacitors at home:

All 220pf or whatever that value is (the standard value for most guitars)
2 polypropylen
2 different sets of ceramic ones
2 unknown, most likely ceramics
As pictured....


And one single capacitor rated at apparently 102. What could that be for???

I do use the tone pot from time to time, mainly on the neck pickup. Which ones should I go with first? Ceramic or polypropylen? Or is it just trial and error?

Thanks for any insight into this.

[Dmoney]

102?
that is pretty small. 1000pf i think.
the cap you're thinking of is 22000pf (22nf or 0.022uf)

1000pf probably isn't any use in a guitar.

I'd use the polyprop ones if it was me, but its just trial and error. The different materials probably have different max voltage ratings etc but not like your guitar is churning out +600v.

the middle could be dipped ceramic or tantalum or something. Just test em out see if you notice any difference.
while you're doing it, you could also test out the 50's vs modern wiring?

[Alex]

Yes, they are 22nf.

The 102 I have no idea what it could be for.

I read somewhere that the 50s wiring works best with low output PAFs, but not with hotter pickups. The ones in the guitar are more on the hotter side.

[Dmoney]

i tried it with nailbombs in my les paul. quite liked it.
I play with the tone at 10 most of the time, i just liked how it sounded when turning down the volume.
its pretty easy to A/B it... kind of... depending on your soldering.

1000pf could be for a lot of things. I experimented with them in my amp as coupling caps and treble attenuators. probably not much use in a guitar tone circuit. you might loose some of the highest frequencies your guitar is putting out. might sound weird. I'm not sure what frequency you roll off at using 500K pots and that cap.

[HTH AMPS]

104 = 0.1uF = 100nF = 100,000pF
103 = 0.01uF = 10nF = 10,000pF
102 = 0.001uF = 1nF = 1000pF
101 = 0.0001uF = 0.1nF = 100pF

224 = 0.22uF = 220nF = 220,000pF
223 = 0.022uF = 22nF = 22,000pF
222 = 0.0022uF = 2.2nF = 2200pF
221 = 0.00022uF = 0.22nF = 220pF

[Alex]

The orange ones were obviously a wrong rating, they didn't do anything.
The small blue ceramic ones work fine and surprisingly well.

[Alex]

They are alle resistors, doing essentially the same, but they differ in the material they are made of.

Ceramic is a common and cheap one. Polypropylen is another material as would "oil and paper" be in old-fashioned ones.
Some guitar players claim that some of these "sound" better with the tone pot. I cannot verify nor deny it, as I never used other material (as I wrote above the polypropylen ones didn't work as they were a wrong rating). However, I figure if you only very seldomly use your tone pot there isn't any difference to worry about.

[ShredHeadJHJ]

I paid $14 for a really high end capacitor to put in my Yngwie Strat. The other day I picked it up from my tech, and I dropped it off again today to have him put the old little cheap Fender supplied one back in (among other tech issues...). I'll never jump to conclusions on swapping caps again.

Sorry for going off topic, lolol!  :lol: