What type of capacitors do you prefer?

[josephdaniel]

Just looking to see what type of caps you guys prefer to use in your sets. I myself like to use film capcitors where ever I can but if I cant I will use orange drops But with filters I just stick with plane ole cheap electrolytics I learned most of this from doing several radio restoratons.

[bandersen]

I try to use name brand (Mallory, Cornel Dubilier, Sprague, Panasonic, Nichicon, etc) plastic film caps when I can rather than the generic yellow ones. Not that I've ever had a problem with the yellow ones, but I like to have the full specs for components I'm using. I also try to use electrolytics rated for 105C.

[Eric H]

I like the yellow axials, they are very easy to work with and I haven't had any problems with them.

Orange Drops (or Orange Dips as the Generics are called) are nice but not all that well suited for point to point wiring, the leads are too short in many cases, I'll use them if I have too, they works great in PC boards like the Predicta uses for instance.

[Tom Albrecht]

The yellow polyester film ones have performed flawlessly for me -- I can't recall ever having a new one go bad, and at this point I've certainly installed many hundreds of them, maybe even more than a thousand. They don't look all that nice, but I figure the bottom of the chassis is mainly for me to look at, and as long as the wiring is really nice, I'm happy with it. Once in a while I will restuff original paper caps if a customer wants it done on a special set. I get the yellow caps from several sources. The only thing to watch out for is that a few of the sellers sell caps with very short leads, which I don't like.

For electrolytics, I've been OK with what I've been getting from JustRadios. Good selection with many values and brands, and no need to hunt through a huge catalog with thousands of options to find what I'm looking for.

[cwmoser]

I like JustRadios too. I have not been paying much attention to the temperature
rating of Electrolytics but more and more people are commenting on it that I
will go with the better rating too.

One peeve I have is that I use JustRadios Spagetti tubing on all my new installs
of capacitors and resistors. I like to take the time and I like the looks better.

Carl

[wa2ise]

I've obtained many usable caps from scrapping out old tube VGA monitors. Also resistors and some coils. Ask any ham radio operator about the concept of the "junk box"

[DaveWM]

always test before putting in new caps, I have had a few new yellow axial lead caps (think they were all .1 IIRC) that were badly shorted.

I like to use the modern dipped nichicons if I have to buy new, and then I get them generally in the 1-2kv which will cover pretty much any need. the higher rated voltage caps are generally larger than say a typical 630v, but that just makes them closer to the orig size.