Hello everyone, I just have some general capacitor questions. I recently ordered some caps so I can work on a WM-F2095 (and its siblings), but I also recently ordered a ex606 and have been looking into getting some caps for that one (and ones I missed for others). While I was going through the manual, I noticed this one Electrolytic Cap with a 22uF, 0%, 4v rating. After watching a YT video, it seems like this is a through hole Cap. So when I went searching for a through hole with those specs, I couldn't find any with a 0% tolerance rating (that were small enough). My first question is, does it have to be a 0% tolerance replacement or can it be +- 20% or so? My second question is, with caps, is it ok to get a higher voltage rated cap with the same uF and tolerance ratings? ex: instead of the original 220uF 20% 4V is it safe to get a 220uF 20% 6.3V? My Third question is, are through hole caps usually 0% tolerance rated, or is this just exclusive to a few models? Picture included shows the ex606 cap in question from the manual. Thank you for your help.
There's no such thing as a 0% tolerance, that's an error in the service manual. Seen errors in SONY service manuals before. Generally speaking, when the capacitance is critical in a circuit, the designer will choose a different type of capacitor as electrolytics have high tolerances. In fact, if you look at the line just below C314 you will see that C315 (which is rated with 10% tolerance) is a ceramic, not an electrolytic. Yes as long as the higher voltage ones actually fit (take into consideration the mechanism's moving parts). The higher the voltage rating the bigger the capacitor will be. Let's take C307 as an example (WM-F2095). On the schematic it's shown as 47uF@4V (see pic attached), but we can see the DC voltage at which it operates is 0.7V (marked on pin 10 of the IC). Idea is that the rating should be higher (in the ideal case double, but that won't be always possible) than the voltage at which the capacitor operates at. So in the case of C307 anything 2V rated or higher will be fine (note we don't even need a 4V rating in this particular case). The manufacturer probably chose a 4V rated one because those are more common and cheaper than 2V rated, not because they actually needed that rating. But if they had stocks of 2V rated ones and they wanted to use them, they could do that without any problems. They could also have used 6.3V ones or 10V ones if they had those and it would be economical and practical (size) to do so. In fact, no part (being it electronic or mechanical) can have 0% tolerance. Anything has tolerance, even though in some cases it can be very small it's never 0%. Electrolytics have typical tolerance of +/-20% (both SMD and THT ones).
Thank you very much Valentin. I had a small suspicion that it was an error due to the missing % sign, but I wasn't sure at all. As for the picture you've attached, I can now say that I somewhat understand that part of the diagram now. And thank you for the answer to the voltage question, now I can factor in some lower voltage caps (still at least double the operating voltage). That definitely helps.
