Are your Orange Drops Bass Ackwards?

[WA4WAX]

It would be a misnomer to call them "nonpolarized".  Mr. Carlson explains why. 

This information might fix a pesky noise problem for someone.

Do check out his videos.  Lots of great stuff!  Gotta love this guy's lair!

Matt

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnR_DLd1PDI

[WD8KDG]

For point to point wiring: I install all foil/film caps sideways. This is the best of all worlds; you heard it here first on AMfone.net.

It must be true, now it is on the web.

Craig

[W3RSW]

Tubular wound caps may have a black band marking the outside foil connecting lead.
This will help shield in E fields, not so much right next to that honkin' AC power transformer.

[Opcom]

Some orange drops or look alikes have a line at one end.  Seen them in TV sets in the horizontal output area sometimes.

[WA4WAX]

The black band is often wrong.  Test them all!

[N8CMQ]

My disc ceramics have printing on one side and nothing on the other,
that is the side I read.

Sadly, I do know what he is saying, and in a few small cases it could make a
significant difference. however, most paper caps don't care which side goes
where, especially interstage caps!

Grounded bypass caps, ya, maybe... But in my Halli SX-101, the bypass caps
are disc ceramics.

[W2PFY]

I think the video is "right on", but not "spot on" since a spot is something that needs to be removed?

If I were going to take the time to recap an old Hallicrafters receiver I would take his
advice and mark every cap that was going to be used. I have seen one SX-38 ( could have the model number wrong) that was recapped and it was nothing but a big hum box and worked like crap on all bands. I didn't get the job to de-hum it but it makes me wonder, if all those caps installed correctly, how it may have turned out? I realise there are many other unknowns about this receiver that were lurking just waiting to ambush the repair person, but taking time to do it right,  is always  good sweat equity....  

[WD5JKO]

    One comment about the scope test to find the cap common. It will not work at all if your standing with bare feet on concrete. Not that I'd be dumb enough to do that, but just saying.    Better wear them Nike's.

Jim
Wd5JKO

[KA2DZT]

The band on all paper caps indicates the outside foil.  Knowing this can be useful.  Usually when used as by-pass caps you ground the end with the band.  When used for coupling caps you may want to have the band on the plate side and connect the inside foil to the grid, this helps to reduce hum and noise pick up.  There may be some circuits where you may want to connect them one way or the other and some circuit where it would make no difference.

Fred

[W2PFY]

The band on all paper caps indicates the outside foil.

Are they still making paper caps?

[Todd, KA1KAQ]

Someone correct me if I'm wrong (happens more and more), but wasn't it pretty much an industry standard or, at least, accepted practice that the band or foil side was always the lead to the right of the lettering/labeling on the cap? Can't help wondering if this is nothing more than a combination of some bad crap from China and a growing group of new age/less technically savvy people.

Terry - check out Antique Electronic Supply online for some interesting and amusing caps. AES now caters almost exclusively to the audio crowd with generally less technical expertise and far more experience in areas of ambiance, tessitura, soundstage, audio transparency, oxygen-free copper and the likes. No doubt a larger and more profitable audience than the old radio crowd that grows smaller (and still cheap in comparison) each year.