"Chuck Harris" wrote in
message ...
Richard Knoppow wrote:
"Chuck Harris" wrote in

The BB's are all bad by now, and should be replaced on
sight, but when
they were new, they were a nice high performance
capacitor.

Snipping here...

-Chuck
There are Black Beauties, and there are Black Beauties!

The oil filled Black Beauties, in my experience, always
have
color coded bands that tell the ratings. They were a
premium
capacitor, and as such were quite expensive.

The polyester dielectric capacitors have black bodies,
with
red lettering. I recall that they came out after the oil
filled capacitors.

Orange drops were a step up from the waxed paper
capacitors,
and a step down from the molded polyester black beauties.
They were designed especially for printed circuit board
use.
Orange drops were a relatively cheap "jobber" capacitor,
but
they have certainly withstood the test of time quite well.

-Chuck

All the BBs I've seen had colored stripes indicating
the capacitance value and other data. These were dry caps.
Not dried out oil-filled, there was no trace of oil or means
of adding it.
According to Sprague advertising of the time (early
1960s) the BB and Orange Drop had identical construction
other than the encapsulation and radial leads on the ODs. I
don't have catalogue info giving prices. The ODs were
evidently made for printed circuit installation as you say
and were probably smaller due to the dipped rather than
molded case. I am not sure what the case of the BBs is made
of, it appears to be a resin plastic such as Bakelite which
was widely used at the time. Bakelite can shrink and depends
very much on the filler used for longevity. They may have
been made of something else. In any case, its of academic
interest now. I remember having been warned not to use BBs
as early as highschool, meaning the late 1950's. Also, the
Hammarlund receivers began to be rebuilt with disc ceramics
about the late 1950's so the trouble must have shown up
within a few years. Sprague continued building the cap so,
perhaps, the cause of the problem was discovered. They
_should_ have been a superior capacitor. Too bad.


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Richard Knoppow
Los Angeles, CA, USA