RE: Capacitor question...
Yep, it's ok. Also, the caps don't have to be the same value (uF) - they'll add up anyway. 10uF & 4.7uF in parallel = 14.7 - like adding resistors in series. Sometimes a designer will use different values on purpose - like 10uF, 1uF, and 0.1 or even 0.001 - each cap works best at a certain frequency when bypassing power supply lines, etc. Using the multiple values will help create a broad-band low impedance. There's more to it than that, but if you're just looking for large amounts of capacitance, then adding up multiples of the same value is no problem.
Another thing to watch - with most electrolytic caps (the larger values you're mentioning) it's best not to have the actual applied voltage much over 60-70% of the rated voltage, they'll last longer that way. If you have 5V caps, for instance, I wouldn't use them much over 3.5 volts or so in circuit. I think cap vendors will say 80% or so, hence the 6.3V caps (used on 5V circuits), etc.