finding outer foil with DAW

[studiodunn]

I've been wanting to improve my builds and realize that simply orienting the caps properly to reduce noise should have been something I did all along, but here we are several builds later and just now attempting to mark my caps.

I have been reading up on how to find the outer foil and most involved an oscilloscope or used the hum and listen method. I don't have a scope and after a few minutes of hum and listen it was apparent to me that I wasn't hearing enough difference in some caps to be sure. Some were very obvious, others got flipped around too many times and I still wasn't sure

So I thought I would try to use my DAW as a scope/hum and listen tester
1/4", alligator clips into my interface ---> reaper with a spectrum analyzer on an insert and I had visual and audible confirmation of the outside foils!
The channel peak hold makes referencing the difference easy and my desk chair is much more comfortable than my garage stool

foil tester.jpg

[ViperDoc]

THAT IS AWESOME!

[ChopSauce]

Sounds great...

I'll try this, thanks!