One of the things to be aware of if you carry stocks, is storage period. If its over two years, I normally put them on the reformer for while.

Otherwise with older neglected caps, I do not bother. The reformer was actually built to catch the ones that like to fail at various voltages below their rating. I had a dud new one recently that almost made it to 500V before starting to conduct at a hyperbolical rate. The reformer on the bench PSU is a regulated stepper starting at 25V so one can pick the fail point. A short will lock up the regulator.

I agree Marcc.
When I reorder my caps I time the order so that I nearly run out of stock before new stock arrives. The factory never has any in storage as they prefer to make them fresh upon receiving the order.

Guys the new caps are here. Yes no one has supplied these in the recent past for the restorer. I have sent photos and will explain more when they are up.

Ok here they are. Prices are 25 cents each. They come in .1 ,.01,.001 .22, .,022 , .0022, .33 ,.033, .0033, .47, .047 and .0047 in 630 volt. The beauty of these are they are pure black and really suit the older look. Yes the values are the modern codes but you can mount them with the codes underneath and they look great.

They are definitely 5% tolerance as well. I sell kits of 120 caps for $30. Or individual.

Photos uploaded to Post 34.

Carl, these new black caps.
Just as a matter of interest have you tested any of these, and pushed them to their limits.
Be interested to see what the punch through voltage is.
JJ

Well I know they are 5% tolerance and rated at 630 volts. I have only just got them . I can only say they are of the highest quality. Definitely a better looking cap.

Having said that would you like to test some for me Johny?

Yes, would love to have a play with a couple of values.
The recent yellow 630volt caps I tested passed with flying colours.
Will email you.
JJ

Johny Yours are in the mail. Sorry I have been a bit slack with them.

Carl, I'd like to test a few to see if they are suitable for boost cap service in TVs. This class of service can be demanding for current handling capacity. I could test a few 47nF caps to destruction for you and give you a report.

I believe you have my street and email address. Email is unhidden anyway.

Emailed you Ian.

Well the results are starting to come in for these and they are looking good.

Being pedantic: With caps & very few do it on circuits, I prefer to add the leading Zero before the decimal point. That way the point is distinguishable from the Fly dung & spots you see on the AORSM ones & often if you fail to clean the scanner bed.

Love the irony of them being called "Amber" when they're actually Black?

Well here are the Results of Johnies capacitor tests. You will see that he went far and beyond with these tests and they are proof that they are of the highest quality.
Following is a copy and paste from Johns email and its reproduced with his permission..



Hello again Carl,

I have gone as far as I can with these samples you sent me.
ie, 6 only .1uF(104) 630v Amber caps.
2 only .0047uF(472) 630v Amber caps.
2 only .001μF (102) 630v Amber caps.
I would have liked to test the more common ones we use in vintage radio repairs, ie .022, .047, .01 uF’s.
But the samples were enough to judge the overall quality.

I liked the thick/stiff tinned fly leads on all of the samples.
Someone on Facebook commented on ESR testing, but with these type of capacitors used in vintage repair it is irrelevant.
ESR becomes more important with low impedance circuits as in switch mode power supplies, ie electrolytic capacitors.

All samples were tested for one week 24hrs a day at 500 volts DC and gave no problems, as one would expect.
They then were run at 1000 volts DC for a week, again not a single failure.
They were then subjected to 240 AC mains (via a dim bulb), with no problems.
I then subjected them all to 1200 volt AC puncture test, and could create a 2mm long arc when pulled away from the terminals.
Not a single capacitor failed this test. And as indicated originally I would destroy some, this did not happen.
I still have 10 good caps.

Using three different capacitance meters, it was found that the worst tolerance variance on all caps was 2 percent.
Most appeared to be around 1.5 percent accurate in value.

Have had a bit of fun doing this, and had to be a careful safety wise running them 24/7 in my workshop.
Was expecting smoke as some stage but it did not happen.
Will not hesitate using these samples in my future repairs or projects.
Cheers,
Johnny(JJ)

I would agree that location plays a large part in cap selection. RB with longish leads can often be much tidier on the cathode of a valve socket & hanging down is below the rising heat in most cases. The same applies to the occasional use of "Red" green caps.

In many other circumstances, due to lead length & the need to keep the cap close to the chassis (2nd detector 1st AF, finicky area) in most cases replacing axial with axial is a lot less hassle.

Beware stuffing RB's into metal cans; I have noted, on forums, bare metal cap tops, & other shorts occurring, insulating the wall is often a good idea.