Non-polarized capacitors for crossover in Europe

[nisios]

Hi,

Anybody knows a good place to buy these in Europe?
I have to rebuild a pair of JBL LSR32 Crossovers.

Thanks

[J M Fahey]

Any good electronics parts supplier will have something to suit your needs.

Donīt fall in the trap of exotic/"audiophile" parts but get regular commercial parts.

What capacitance/voltage are you looking for?

[tedmich]

Yi!

Low - Mid Frequency Crossover:
4th order Acoustic Linkwitz-Riley: 250 Hz
Mid - High Frequency Crossover:
4th order Acoustic Linkwitz-Riley: 2.2 kHz

and bandpass doubles this; 16 caps and 16 inductors per pair.

thats a lot of components, I'd leave it alone unless they're broken!

[nisios]

The capacitors are broken, distinctively bulged. One speaker almost doesnt have mid and high frequencies. But i will have to change all of them to maintain Left/Right integrity.
These are 3 way studio mid-field speakers, they are big!

They use these values, all non-polaried electrolytics 5% tolerance:
100uF 100V
80uF 100V
82uF 100V
45uF 200V (but 100V will do)
43uF 100V

Not very common values and specially not a very common tolerance.... I all most just been abble find 10%

[nisios]

oh....and i never fall for the audiophile snake oil trap....
but very wise advise, thanks.

[tedmich]

since non-polarized caps are so inexpensive (compared to any film) you could reasonably buy 5 of each and get 2 within ~5%, You'd of course have to build the non-standard values up; 33+10, 80+2 etc. These caps are almost never rated past 1000h so they don't last long.

[Leo_Gnardo]

These caps are almost never rated past 1000h so they don't last long.

I was going to recommend film caps, until I saw the values required. It would be very expensive. FWIW Parts Express has very competent film caps at lowest prices in their "Dayton" line.

Non-polarized electrolytics are back-to-back pairs of electrolytic caps and go bad with age just like regular electrolytics, as you already found. Hopefully new ones will give you at least a 20 year run.

[Enzo]

Expensive and they would be the size of a melon.

[Leo_Gnardo]

"Expensive and they would be the size of a melon."

What's wrong with that? (As I scan Enzo's ski-jump avatar for the 10,000th time.) Think BIG!

But seriously now, you're right. Couldn't fit that crossover in the speaker cab if it was loaded with film caps.

[tedmich]

these speakers are 21.3 kg (47 lbs) Dimensions (WxHxD): 63.5 x 39.4 x 29.2 cm (25.0 x 15.5 x 11.5 in.) so you could fit films... wallet would have plenty more room too...

[nisios]

hehe. you could fit them, but then forget the 5% tolerance as you will be decreasing dramatically the air mass inside the speaker and with that alter the acoustics....

I found a shop in europe that sells some close values, i would buy a bunch and select. But was just wondering if anybody knew any other shops, because im not very much into the audiophile stuff and i only found these parts in shops somewhat dedicated to that.....humm and i dont like it very much. I like to buy stuff from Farnell but they dont seem to have anything that i can use in this case. Rapid Online either.

I thought about using some high quality back to back electrolytics, but im a bit concerned about how to mount it really tight in the crossover, because im affraid it can rattle a bit. These are pretty big speakers, and they can be very loud.

[tedmich]

as to building them with std ELs you could heat shrink them together, even use the inner melt type or hot melt them down (common in crossovers) the only potential issue being heat or the EL vent locations, rattling would be bad but functioning will be waaay better than non, good luck.