Good-All PIO Caps

[passfan]

Anyone use any of the brown, Good-All type vintage caps or have an opinion on them ? I have a butt load of the things in two different types, molded and what looks to be like something was poured. Convex on one end and concave on the other. I believe they're paper in oil and they grow by the bushel full in vintage tube organs, which is where I get them.

[diagrammatiks]

picture?

[Cliff Schecht]

There are a few types of old caps to watch out (dangerous to use) and it sounds like you got some of them. The paper in wax caps are prone to failure in tube equipment and in many situations can fail to a short (usually the worst case scenario). The wax melts under the heat and the caps drift all over the place. I can't speak on their tone because I would never use them .

The plastic encapsulated caps might be good. Do they have a solder ball on each end? This means they are the old paper and mylar in oil type caps which I think are prone to go bad eventually. In old 60's electronics when you open it up and there is oil all in the chassis, it's probably a leaky oil capacitor. These aren't equivalent to the metal encased paper in oil caps with epoxy seals. They were typically built for military and precision applications. I'm yet to have one of these fail.

[passfan]

Finally got some pics

[Phil_S]

I harvested a few like that. Not the collection you have. I haven't tried to use them. Wondering, same as you, so I'm glad you asked!

[diagrammatiks]

If they test good they should be good to use.

they aren't going to be the quality of the hermatically sealed metal cased pio's but any that are still good should remain good.

[Cliff Schecht]

Yeah I've used those in my tweed and brown Fender builds. They sound great. I've never had one leak but it's always good to test old used caps for leakage at their rated operating voltage.

[tictac]

The old Standel tube amps used those type of caps...

[passfan]

I harvested a few like that. Not the collection you have. I haven't tried to use them. Wondering, same as you, so I'm glad you asked!

That's only about a tenth of what I have bagged up. I guess I'll be using some now.

[crbowman]

The old Standel tube amps used those type of caps...

I had a tweed National amp (made by Valco) that had those as well. It was a little dark, but I think that had more to do with other factors.