"Jack Schmidling" wrote in message
...
I keep seeing caps described as "computer grade" but a search for a
definition comes up with zilch.

What does this mean? As the vast majority of computers are owned by the
masses, one could assume it means sleazy consumer quality. Or it could
mean the kind of computer that prevents ICBM's from being accidentally
launched.

Which is it?

JACK K9ACT

I first ran into computer grade caps back in the 1970's, back when I was
building my first homebuilt computer (before the masses owned computers), I
considered it a pejorative, in that it was only good for building power
supplies for computers. Would it be be better if it said low voltage dc
power supply caps? Those big coke can sized caps made great smoothing caps,
along with some smaller caps they could knock ripple down to where you
needed an oscope to see it. Just don't build a supply with that as the only
cap on the output, they are ok on low freq swings, but also add a 1k and 10
uf cap to help clean up the rest of the ripple.
thanks John.
KC5DWD