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RE: Capacitor cooker / Break in?

Thanks for your answer Lew.

The subject about capacitors is an interesting one. I heard from a friend of mine that was over the other night that polystyrenes are actually baked at the factory in the production process. The foil and the dielectric are initially joined together. At this point the capacitance is lower than at the end of the process. After that the capacitors are heated so that dielectric shrinks resulting in the foil and polystyrene joining closely. This raises the capacitance to the value aimed for. So what you do may well take the production process a bit further. It would be interesting if you could measure the capacitance of the capacitors that you cook and see if there is any change in capacitance. It could be that the effect that you here is due to something entirely different, however.

I have some friends who are discriminating when listening. If there is an indication that there is a new capacitor that is of interest and not outrageously expensive (there are many of these about now days) we buy a pair and make a comparison with our standard. If it is any better it will be included in our arsenal for future projects or an immediate change if very good.

Many many years ago I bought 8-10 polypropylenes that were heavily promoted by TAS. I believe they were called Wonder Caps. After listening to them my reaction was that the only heating process proper for these items would be that performed by an incinerator. Since then I have become a bit more sceptical to buying more than two as a starting order.

The reference that I gave on authors of pioneering articles about capacitors was half right half wrong. Please go to the very informative site below, about capacitors were you will also get the correct authors.
http://www.reliablecapacitors.com/pickcap.htm


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