Tropical Fish caps

[markm]

Just salvaged these this past week......
They were "liberated" from a highly abused PA head that was shot.

[jonathan perez]

cool! 

what PA head was it?

what trannies you got there? 

[markm]

I didn't even get the model of the PA head.
It was TRASHED. Almost unrecognizable. The trannies and op amps are house numbered it seems.
Some of 'em are
2N3856a
RCA 292 7750
NE540L (10 pin op-amp in a can)
610263-4
610270-1
610265-1
Some odd pieces.

[nightingale]

i believe those are .1uf caps.

hth,
ry

[jonathan perez]

sure theyre not .01? i cant tell.

[Pedal love]

Those are 0.1uF. You can tell the the capacitance by the three top values. The first two from the top are the numbers. The third is the multiplier. So its... brown=1, black=0, Yellow is 10,000 so, 10 x 10000 equals 100000pf convert from  picofarads  to microfarads and its .1uf. The white stripe indicates 10% and the red stripe indicated 250 volts.

[Paul Marossy]

Nice score. 

[Paul Perry (Frostwave)]

http://www.kpsec.freeuk.com/components/capac.htm

"tell a man what his tropical fish cap is, and he knows that cap. Teach a man to read a tropical fish cap, and he will"...errrr......something or other.......I'll go now......

[jimbob]

I think im going to paint my Greenie caps like the tropical fish ones just for show. Even if it is just FAKE mojo.

[jonathan perez]

well, thats the whole reason they sound so good.

take a look at jennifer lopez.

she couldnt sing to save her life.

but she looked GREAT! and totally compensated.

[JonFrum]

well, thats the whole reason they sound so good.

take a look at jennifer lopez.

she couldnt sing to save her life.

but she looked GREAT! and totally compensated.

Jennifer Lopez sings?   


The voice may be fake, but the booty is totally real.   

[jonathan perez]

thatsss what im saaayin! 

[alextheian-alex]

That NE540L is an old class A audio opamp.  If it is working, it might be useful.

[analogguru]

The color strips on my father´s resistors and "tropical fish" caps made me interested in this nice little "mikado"-pieces in the age of 5 years - my father didn´t like that I play with his "toys", maybe this was the reason that I started later in electronics.

analogguru

P.S.: Do women like JayLo not look sometimes like a tropical fish with all the color in their face?

[idlechatterbox]

QUOTE:
"Even if it is just FAKE mojo"

Is there any other kind?

[Gus]

Before you make fun of the mojo

I believe there are over 900 types of PET film( I taked to a chemist about PET/mylar)

Check the leakage of old TFCs.   I think the coating might be hygroscopic or porous with some of them.  I measured some old ones and they had more leakage than newer caps, I then placed them in a temp control lab oven for a few hours to heat them up and when retested the leakage was much less.

[markm]

I had heard these can sound good in some circuits but was aware of some of the mojo that went with them as well.
Still, they're a nice find all the same! 
Thanks for the info on the NE540L alextheian-alex, I appreciate it.
The house numbered stuff still confuses me a bit however.

[zjokka]

tone component mojo is always the same: if after heavy research there turns out to be some ground, then it boils down to: we love the ("bad") sounds we've come accustomed to.

It's just romanticism really.

* the vox wah's faulty inductor giving that great sound,
* the way tubes get their great sound from 'dirt' in the sonic spectrum,
* the way overdrive evolved from an unavoidable side effect of early guitarist trying to match the volume of horns of drums to an seminal part of the guitar sound.

Gus, are you saying their leakage contributes to the specificity of their sound?

Check the leakage of old TFCs.   I think the coating might be hygroscopic or porous with some of them.  I measured some old ones and they had more leakage than newer caps, I then placed them in a temp control lab oven for a few hours to heat them up and when retested the leakage was much less.