What's your favorite Hi Voltage electrolytic cap?

[1ampman]

500v & 450v caps.... I see several brands from China and Taiwan but have not used any. I mostly use F&T, JJ, Sprague... I noticed the IC caps don't last as long. Your thoughts and experience ???

[Chuck H]

I've always used Vishay/Sprague with good results... Until recently. My last couple of builds with the Atom caps have displayed symptoms of poor filters. I intend to change brands on my next build. The caps that catch my fancy are the Nichicon PW series. They are also popular with the hi fi guys. Panasonic caps have a good rep. I don't know if they make them. Probably not and I don't know who does.

The Nichicon caps don't come in axial lead type. Not a huge deal breaker for me even though I still build on eyelet boards. It's a small concession in design for a cap that specs right and costs less than half what the Atoms do. I'm not interested in trends or names, just performance. The Nichicon PW's and a couple of other series they make look really good.

[jrfrond]

Hmmm..... ALL caps are good until they malfunction or manifest quality issues. Vishay/Sprague is good, but also sport large packaging, which might not always work, depending on the application. The ubiquitous Illinois Cap, used by many manufacturers, seems to have decent reliability. There's also Lelon (formerly known as Xicon) which is a division of Taiwan Alpha. I've used lots of those with good results. F & T from Germany is really good, and comes in many of those "Sprague only" values, e.g. 25/50, 16/475, etc. Nichicon, CDE and United Chemi-con are good as well.

I tend to avoid cheap stuff like Jamicon and anything else I haven't heard of. Something else to ponder, which many people don't, is temperature range. In some tube amps, it might no matter, but if an amp is designed such that a lot of tube heat can bombard the filter caps and prematurely dry them out, that is something to consider when deciding to purchase 85C or 105C caps.

[defaced]

Nichicon ... United Chemi-con

These two. Both in radial/snap in. I mount them sideways for turret builds. Add in a zip tie or some hot glue and you're done.

[pdf64]

F T Axial Electrolytic 22uF 550V 18x39mm
F&T 22uF 550V - maintaining plenty of 'headroom' between the actual voltage and max rated voltage should pay dividends in increased life (similarly with temperature 'headroom' as John points out). Pete.

[jrfrond]

As a tangent to this thread, I want to say that I do NOT believe in purchasing cheap components. The price difference isn't worth the possible headaches. Hence, I tend to avoid a lot of discount parts houses that sell no-name (or unheard of) components at ridiculous prices. Therefore, I tend to stick with Mouser and Digi-Key for most of my needs. For the HV 'lytics, I sometimes get the best deals at CE Dist. or New Sensor, and of course, CE has the multi-cans in stock. For JEDEC semi's, it's usually Union Electronics and MCM. As a Peavey service center, I will also partake of their parts as well, which are at a good price. In any case, I just refuse to use cheap sh*t.