Giant Caps

[surfsup]

Nice to see someone else using Solen fast caps. I am using them right now in a build, and will post the results when I am done. I have to admit I am very interested in the outcome, I'm using them for all the rail caps. No electrolytics. I ended up swapping the 16x8x2 for a 16x8x2.5 to get me an extra 1/2" of depth (using 15uF 630V). Was going to put em on the chassis, but ended up deciding to put em up on a G10 with 1/2" spacers. 2.5" gives me the room with plenty to spare for a ziptie to hold 'em down as they are 1.4" diameter.

[diagrammatiks]

at 400vdc it's just about easier to use 10 2.2s then it is to use a 22 from the same manu.

I think I'm going to have to use 20 10ufs for my cap input filter. The Solen 100s are way to big.

[cminor9]

I put used solen filter caps in a 5f2-a I built recently. I then swapped two of them for some cheap xicon radial caps. Disclaimer: the solens were 15uf, and the xicons were 22uf. I left the 10uf solens in the amp.

The amp was dead quiet. As in, so quiet when I first fired it up and turned up the volume I couldn't even tell if the thing was working. It was working, and was just the quietest amp I have ever built. After switching in the 2 electrolytic caps, the amp now has a very slight hum. I mean slight, probably less than my commercially built tube amps. There's wasn't much difference between the amp with the solens and without, either in terms of tone or feel.

It certainly wasn't enough for me to justify the added headache of trying to fit these monsters into an amp. I think if you are building something that can do with <22uf fiter caps they might be a good choice because they shouldn't need replacing in 10 years like electrolytics might. But this is assuming you have some extra space in the chassis. More than 22uf and I think you are dealing some gigantic caps that just won't fit into anything.

[diagrammatiks]

Oh ya I've been using at least bypassed electro's in the big reservoirs and small arrays of 2.2 and 4.7 in the preamp stages.

dead silent. This is with 4 or 5 gain stages.

The bigger ones are a headache. Insofar as it's actually more constructive to use parallel arrays given how the math works out...I don't think I'm going to bother.

I stuck the 47ufs into a modified valve junior. That has a big deep chassis. Fit easy.

edit: since this is my cap thread...does anyone know anything about westlake caps?

I searched google but all I got were some one line references from tgp.

[soundmasterg]

I'm planning on trying the Solens in a Sunn 2000S rebuild for four reasons. 1.) The chassis is huge and has tons of room to fit these admittedly massive caps. 2.) I plan to keep the amp forever and don't want to have to change the electrolytics again. 3.) A bass amp might benefit from the quick response these caps can provide. 4.) I'm curious about what might change in the sound and feel.

I'll be using the 100uf 630v and 51uf 630v cans mounted on the top of the chassis, and the 22uf and 47uf axials on the inside somewhere.

Greg

[diagrammatiks]

i noticed 2 things right away even with just bypassing the electros...
much tighter bass and much better high end clarity.