technical question on caps

Posted by: Justin on 18 April 2002

For you technical types out there:

When somebody refers to "film" type capacitors, is he talking about metalized film, polypropylene, or polystyrene capacitors. Or, is there no way to tell?

Thanks
Judd

Posted on: 18 April 2002 by rp

If someone just says film there is no way to tell, they're usually trying to differentiate from electrolytics, tantalums, or oils or old paper etc. Polypropylenes are cheapest and tend to be gumdrop shaped, metalized usually box or radial and round, polystyrenes same but usually are picofarad values. This is broad and general.

Posted on: 18 April 2002 by Justin

film types were suggested in the context of a speaker cross-over. Does that help?

Judd

Posted on: 18 April 2002 by Manu

It probably just means "not electrolitics".
Electrolitics are used in cheap crossovers. Film caps are expensive for big values, as required in passive crossover.

Emmanuel