[HAM] Recapping

[Kon Zissis]

Hi David.
A few people who love the current sound of their wax paper capped pre
1964 TG's  have written that they want to recap their TG's with new
capacitors that are of the exact same mfd values as the current mfd
values of the aged wax paper caps so that they can indefinitely preserve
the current sound that is produced by the wax paper caps before they
gradually drift up even more in mfd value thus spoiling the current
sound.
 
Your  posts about dissipation factor and equivalent series resistance (
ESR ) in the 44+ year old aged wax paper caps are very useful reading
for those who want to set up the new replacement capacitors to closely
recreate the current  sound characteristics of the aged  wax paper caps.
All the best.
Kon
 
 
David Anderson wrote:
 
It's all good. We're all just trying to relearn what an electronics  
designer could have told us in 1954 :-)
 
By the way, even if the capacitance of these paper units has only  
gone up 50%, I have found that dissipation factor has often increased  
6 to 9 times, i.e., 600% to 900%, over what was typical for this type  
of capacitor when new.
 
In simple terms, dissipation factor means there's now a resistor in  
the circuit that wasn't there to begin with, a resistor large enough  
to have a significant effect due to the low impedance of the TG  
circuits.