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Capacitor ratings.

good_buddy83

Active Member
Dec 19, 2012
197
36
28
Beamsville
Stupid capacitor question.

Can I substitue a 47 micro farad cap for a 100 micro farad cap?

Reason being is that I have blown a 47 microfarad cap at 25 volts. I have a 100 micro farad cap at 50volts on hand. It is going on a WPC sound board on a Getaway machine. The existing cap blew and now I am stuck on full blast. Let me know. I can hit up the electronics shop tomorrow if need be. Thanks.
 

flyer666

Member
Nov 16, 2012
156
12
18
Kitchener, Onatrio
good_buddy83 said:
Stupid capacitor question.

Can I substitue a 47 micro farad cap for a 100 micro farad cap?

Reason being is that I have blown a 47 microfarad cap at 25 volts. I have a 100 micro farad cap at 50volts on hand. It is going on a WPC sound board on a Getaway machine. The existing cap blew and now I am stuck on full blast. Let me know. I can hit up the electronics shop tomorrow if need be. Thanks.


Not a problem....up can always go up but never down...
 

Menace

Well-Known Member
Staff member
Nov 14, 2012
2,440
255
83
Santiago de Aurora
Just to be clear, you cannot "always go up but never down" when it comes to caps...

When strictly talking about the voltage of a cap, then yes you can always go up but never down. But in the case of increasing the capacitance (which was also part of the original question here), this is NOT the case, and you would have to take the circuit design and what purpose the cap serves before making that call. Where this is for an audio circuit, doubling the capacitance isn't a huge issue and I'm sure will continue to work without any ill effects. But if you were to say double the capacitance of C5 on the driver PCB, it would still work but would stress the bridge rectifiers significantly on start-up with the amount of in-rush current the caps would create, and would eventually destroy the bridge prematurely.

Hope that helps clarify things a little bit, in a general sort of way.

D
 

good_buddy83

Active Member
Dec 19, 2012
197
36
28
Beamsville
That makes sense. Good answer that is why I wanted to ask. Sounds like I will be OK on the sounds board, but I'll keep you posted. Thanks again.