Can I use Orange drops to replace Bumble bees?

[Magnavox300]

I am ready to order caps for this Philco transitone, but was wondering since most of them are on the PC boards, it would probably be easier to use orange drops as opposed to the regular axial polypropylene caps.
Can I use Orange drops? Is there a difference?

[bandersen]

You could, but I think you'll find the spacing on Sprague 'orange drops' much too far apart. Caps like the radial 'orange dips' justradios.com sells or Panasonic caps available from Digi-Key and Mouser will be a better fit.

http://ca.mouser.com/Panasonic/Passi...yzvjj0Z1z0z7l5

[kvflyer]

I'm thinking that axial leads may be the ticket for that application. Many early amplifiers had axial lead capacitors standing on edge with the other lead just bent 180˚ and running down along the side of the capacitor. Resistors were also standing on their leads. You may notice one of the "Bumblebees" is mounted as I have described...

[Einar72]

Originally Posted by bandersen

You could, but I think you'll find the spacing on Sprague 'orange drops' much too far apart. Caps like the radial 'orange dips' justradios.com sells or Panasonic caps available from Digi-Key and Mouser will be a better fit.

http://ca.mouser.com/Panasonic/Passi...yzvjj0Z1z0z7l5

Frankly (as I have said before), I'm not very fond of Matsushita Industries, having decimated the American TV/stereo industry some decades ago They bought up Motorola's TV division and jerked every American employee but good before shutting the operaation down:

http://www.zoklet.net/totse/en/polit.../pbsjapan.html

As far as the no-name "orange dip" caps, you are buying a pig in a poke, since you can't find where they come from (probably overseas).

Having said all that, many Orange Drops are also made in Communist China, the mfr. simply trying to be price-competitive (some are still made here). What I do is cruise eBay and local venues looking for NOS Sprague, Aerovox, Pyramid, Arco, etc. If you HAVE to put foreign-made parts in your 50-year-old TV, buy ASC (American Shizuki Co.). They are still made in the old TRW plant in Ogallala, Nebraska. I talked with their reps in my office back in '88 or '89, back when Japan, Inc. was swallowing up what companies they hadn't run out of business.

[Magnavox300]

Originally Posted by Einar72

Having said all that, many Orange Drops are also made in Communist China, the mfr. simply trying to be price-competitive (some are still made here). What I do is cruise eBay and local venues looking for NOS Sprague, Aerovox, Pyramid, Arco, etc. If you HAVE to put foreign-made parts in your 50-year-old TV, buy ASC (American Shizuki Co.). They are still made in the old TRW plant in Ogallala, Nebraska. I talked with their reps in my office back in '88 or '89, back when Japan, Inc. was swallowing up what companies they hadn't run out of business.

I'm with you on buying American, and I don't think people realize that practically nothing is made here anymore.
If there was an American owned company that manufactured their own caps, I would buy from them without even thinking about it.
The problem is, all day long we buy things made from communist China, and don't even know it. They are backing our national debt for goodness sake!! I'm sure I speak for most of us when I say that it's had a devastating effect on our countries economy, since most everything has moved overseas these past 40 years.

I have some House & Home magazines from the late 50's and early 60's, and in the ads, most every company shows their locations throughout the USA: Lets say it was an add for door locks, or windows, or heaters, it would say: Plant locations: Albany, Rochester, Williamsburg, Baltimore, Atlanta.
Things were made here!! Amazing....
But at the same time, what battle do we fight now?
I certainly would never be able to take the time to look for all NOS caps for every set I was restoring. It could take weeks or months, if you could even find them all, and if they would even be good by now?
It's too incredible to believe there isn't one good company, in ALL of the USA, producing capacitors, tubes, etc..!
I'll look into the ( American Shizuki Co.), but just the name doesn't sound like it's going to be American to me.
Sometimes things are assembled here, to say they are "made in the USA" but the plants for making the parts are still overseas.

[M3-SRT8]

I've stopped worrying about "Buying American" years ago.

Why? Because we are finished as a country. Finished.

Percentage of Manufacturing Jobs in the US? Under 11% now.

We've become a huge corporate and social Welfare State. Propped up by the Red Chinese, and every other country that sells to us.

I used to scoff at panhandlers in my town as lazy bums. Not any more. There's no work - even in good times - for a regular working joe.

Even if we WANTED to "do something" about it, we can't. 16 Trillion Dollars in the Red. Too late now.

[mpatoray]

For replaces I have a mix of film caps, the "generic yellow" axial caps form Just Radio, but mostly I have the Panasonic "radio film" caps that I get from Mouser. But I also have cone new CDE radials and axials too. Personally I would never use NOS caps, as they will have probably gone bad sitting on the shelf for the last 30+ years.

I guess being a child of the 90's I am used to buying "Japan Inc" having been weened on Sony ads back then. As for "Buy American" i do that when possible my LP phono cart and one of the nice pair of headphones that I had(which where stolen) are made by Grado Labs in Brooklyn. But "Buy American" is a big trap, what is "American Made" there are no real FTC regulations so say you buy an "American Made" spray nozzle for your garden, well only that outer plastic covering is American made, but it gets to be labeled that.

Matt