Has anyone of you guys seen these?

[Koda]

These came out of a 30 year old TV a yugoslovenian company called Iskra (means spark in translation). These are different metalized polyester and polyester capacitors and one electrolytic. I can attest to their quality because never in my life i have seen any Iskra made capacitors to be replaced ever, even the electrolytic ones. Shame they stopped electrolytic's because of the cheap chinese crap that started spreading all over the world. One of these is particularly interesting because of the way it has been made. Just the aluminum strip along with the dielectric glued onto what i think to be polyester with no housing at all. Just thought I'd share it and some of you might find it interesting.

Heres a link to the website
http://www.iskra-mis.si



















Edit: Some of these caps were made by EI - Nis, another yugoslovenian company.

[larrymoencurly]

Re: Has anyone of you guys seen these?

Isn't the first one a styrene capacitor? Audiophiles seem to prefer them.

[kc8adu]

Re: Has anyone of you guys seen these?

i see a lot of iskra parts in industrial stuff.

[Koda]

Re: Has anyone of you guys seen these?

Isn't the first one a styrene capacitor? Audiophiles seem to prefer them.

Actually I don't know... this was the first time I encountered such a capacitor.

i see a lot of iskra parts in industrial stuff.

Have you seen any of them go bad??? Just curious...

[dumpystig]

Re: Has anyone of you guys seen these?

Yep, that first one is a styrene - I remember them in an electronics project kit I got when I was a kid.

[GbreadMan]

Re: Has anyone of you guys seen these?

I replaced some styrene capacitors in an Atari 2600 which was having audio problems (lots of static). Replacing them did the trick and fixed it.

They looked like the bottom-most pic up above, but were radials not axials. Gotta be very careful with them, they don't like the solder heat. Will melt into a pile of goo in a heartbeat.

[ipman]

Re: Has anyone of you guys seen these?

Still got a lot of them in my boxes, from old tube tv's. They were quite common in communist countries, made locally, and very reliable.
Altough the oldest caps I have are from a National TV (now Panasonic) made in 1960's. And they are still within tollerance!

[Agent24]

Re: Has anyone of you guys seen these?

Looks like they're all polystyrene or such except the 4th one. Not really surprising they still work, I guess.

[Longbow]

Re: Has anyone of you guys seen these?

The axial caps with clear plastic shell are polystyrene. They have excellent stability, low leakage, low inductance, and low dissipation factor. Usually the values range up to .1 ufd or so. Unfortunately, major manufacturers stopped making them - maybe someone knows the exact reason (expense?) But, if you are lucky enough to have a stash of them, don't throw them away. Do NOT use pc board cleaning spray, as it will melt the plastic and make the capacitor useless.

[Koda]

Re: Has anyone of you guys seen these?

The axial caps with clear plastic shell are polystyrene. They have excellent stability, low leakage, low inductance, and low dissipation factor. Usually the values range up to .1 ufd or so. Unfortunately, major manufacturers stopped making them - maybe someone knows the exact reason (expense?) But, if you are lucky enough to have a stash of them, don't throw them away. Do NOT use pc board cleaning spray, as it will melt the plastic and make the capacitor useless.

I have quite a few of them and I can get my hands on more if I need to. Can these be used in place of ceramic or any other type of capacitors??

[Agent24]

Re: Has anyone of you guys seen these?

The axial caps with clear plastic shell are polystyrene. They have excellent stability, low leakage, low inductance, and low dissipation factor. Usually the values range up to .1 ufd or so. Unfortunately, major manufacturers stopped making them - maybe someone knows the exact reason (expense?)

I think they are just outdated now. For precision timings ovenized crystal oscillators have probably replaced them (and are probably better performing anyway)

In other areas maybe types like polycarbonate, polypropylene or Teflon have replaced them, as they can handle higher temperatures.

Of course this is all just my guess from reading http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Types_of_capacitor

Anyway, some people must still make them, I bought a couple a while back for a capacitance meter I built.