Before I go to far down this road, who here has used both oil filled caps and regular decent quality film caps in there crossovers and what was your preference?
I'm trying to get a parts list together for the Model 19 crossover that's at least as good or even a little better than the original so that I and possibly others will have something to reference. There doesn't seem to be a build thread that exist for the Model 19 crossover with a complete parts list despite the high interest in one of Altec's better crossover units.
I'm not interested in boutique caps that cost an arm and a leg, for those that want them and can afford them that's fine.
As far as decent affordable film caps go, I'm thinking along the lines of Solens. They have the advantage of being much more compact than the oil filled caps if space is a consideration.
So who has worked with both and what has been your experience?
Thanks
BillWojo
I ordered some of the oil caps for a project. I should receive them Monday and have them in circuit by Tuesday or Wednesday. I'll let you know my impressions.
I usually use caps like Solen, Dayton, and Jantzen.
I got the lighting version of the oil caps. Hopefully the resister is external as the pic shows
Some information on lighting caps- see post #10:
Multiway speaker crossover capacitors - differences - diyAudio
Opinion is only as valid as its verifiable supporting evidence.
It sounds like the lighting caps are ideal for crossovers. The ones that do not have internal resisters that is. I will know next weekOriginally Posted by mah
If, for example, you use Solens, be SURE to eliminate the too-thin lead outs on them, toally unsuitable for maintaining DYNAMICS in a ALTEC loudspeaker crossover to a 416, 515, or an 802, etc. in my testing.
See my post here, regarding your quest :
Improving ALTEC Passive crossovers
Also, as a "support", read this FIRST post by someone I never met, on HIS modding of Solen-type cap leads, and the first four entries in this particular thread:
Audio Asylum Thread Printer
And finally, here is a report from just this past week, from a fellow in Minneapolis, on his listening experience upon HIS film cap wire-modding of leads, who ceased to discuss it once the jackels of the Forum arrived on the scene.
Modifying capacitor leads - banpuku - Tube DIY Asylum
ALL you need to do Bill, is put two and two together. Have fun.
Jeff Medwin Low Ohms
Last edited by LowOhms; September 18th, 2016 at 06:40 PM.
good read, the guy does have a point about washing the car. I cleaned out my van today and it not only takes off faster it stops quicker too.
Sonic Barbarian
I put together one of my project crossovers today. Everything is tied together and now I just have to solder it. Anyways I used oil caps from the lighting website. I cut the resisters off. One was dangling by one lead when it got here.
The caps seem to be of good quality. The ones I got are 3% 330VAC 14uf. 2.50$ each. I am running them in a simple 2nd order butterworth.
The caps sound nice. I would say they are not as bright as the normal Daytons or Solens.
These are cheap enough that you could try them out and not be out much money if you don't like them. Thats what keeps me away from boutique caps. What if I paid 40 or 50 bucks for a cap and don't like it? I don't have that much money to waste on audio
Hi Bill
I've used both Solen, PIO, and Teflon bypass caps. The PIO are are much more transparent, and less grainy than the Solens. Remove all the Solens from the XO, replaced PIO and the Teflon bypass caps.
Well I finally found the last two oil filled caps I needed to build my crossovers. Should be here next week. I bought two 6uF from a fellow on AK and they wound up measuring close to 7 uF so today he was offering some 8 uF and I had him test them, measured about 9uF. They will make up the 16uF caps that I need.
I have lot's of 14AWG stranded machine tool wire, good ring lug connectors and the high end Amp crimping tool for them as most of these caps are studs on ceramic insulators. There are a few solder connectors also.
Now I need to find something to build them in. Going to take up a lot of room as every one of the values is made up of two oil caps joined together.
Still need to put in one more parts order, I swear I ordered the 4 ohm resistors but they were not in my order. Need some screw terminal's as well. As pretty as the gold plated banana jacks are, I'm a firm believer in screw terminals for a low resistance connection. To many years servicing industrial controls has convinced me of that.
BillWojo
FWIW, for ~15 yrs was peripherally involved with UL/CSA ratings of all aspects of electrical power and controls and time and again the best connection was a cold weld [proper crimp] ring tongue to a stud with the appropriate torque, flat, lock washer, nut. For bus bars, the same except for high voltage > 600 V needed silver solder braced joints around three sides. In general though, soldering weakens/adds resistance to a joint, though for consumer apps, silver solder works fine, but requires a little skill since the iron/joint has to be so hot.
In all these cases, it was the wire either breaking off or blowing out of connector! Nothing gets your attention quicker than a 1000 mcm cable whipping around the room spewing a 100+ kV @ high current stream of fire sparks.........
Banana jacks were basically worthless regardless of construction unless physically retained, so of no use except for quick change where high performance wasn't required and would be surprised if they're much, if any better than they were the last time I was involved in testing them circa '87.
GM
Loud is Beautiful if it's Clean! As always though, the usual disclaimers apply to this post's contents.
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