German electrolytic capacitor symbol ??

GroupDIY Audio Forum

Help Support GroupDIY Audio Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

guitarmaker

Well-known member
Joined
Jul 1, 2004
Messages
226
Location
Oregon, USA
I'm working with a schaller tremolo schematic and the electrolytic caps are drawn like this with no polarity markings. I don't know this symbol. Can anyone shed light on which is the positive side? Thanks.
symbol.jpg


Steve
 
[quote author="guitarmaker"]I'm working with a schaller tremolo schematic and the electrolytic caps are drawn like this with no polarity markings. I don't know this symbol. Can anyone shed light on which is the positive side? Thanks.
symbol.jpg


Steve[/quote]

Right side is positive. It isn't specifically German; documentation of older Philips-gear (Dutch) uses it as well.

Bye,

Peter
 
And in addition, see for instance the power-supply section of:

http://bama.edebris.com/download/philips/gm2317/2317-08.tif

It provides an easy way to remember: older caps were often of the 'bucket'-type, so one common (-) & multiple (+)-terminals for additional caps. The way this symbol is drawn makes for an easy expansion for those additional (+)-terminals.

I've never seen 'multi-caps' with a common (+), but who knows...
 
[quote author="guitarmaker"]Thanks! That helps a bunch.

Steve[/quote]
Nice. And usually there's also the rest of the schematic that can tell you which side will be at the highest potential (what he means is: let's have a look at the complete schematic, tremolo-circuits are fun :wink: )
 
Nice.

FWIW/that's funny, the cap that seems to be the cropped one at the top of this thread can be either direction in this circuit, but indeed for most others the polarity does matter.

Bye,

Peter
 
...it also graphically illustrates that the can/case of a capacitor is usually negative.

There was a question on this very subject recently, I seem to recall.

Keith
 

Latest posts

Back
Top