DIY Telefunken ELAM 251 Capacitor Type Question

Delta Sigma · Jan 26, 2020

I prefered the sound of the wet tantalum over film and metalized paper. I bought NOS off ebay for a reasonable price. You caould always buy something like this:
https://www.ebay.ca/itm/2pcs-SIEMENS-6-8uF-75V-10-Best-Military-Axial-Wet-Tantalum-Capacitors-B45265/323743425436

3.4uF 150V in series.

Shipping on this guy is criminal!
https://www.ebay.com/c/1001830012

Clakejr · Jan 29, 2020

With purchasig the D251 pcb the BOM requires a 3.3uf Film Polyester 250v/160VAC even with all the google searching and help from you guys . Cant seem to find an exact match. So I wonder can I go a step down like to a 3.0uf, 2.7uf or even a 1.0 to get close to the of a near perfect clone?

dbelousov · Jan 30, 2020

Yes, you can, it should be fine.

BTW 3,3 polyester caps are really huge, so I believe it's a typo. It's a reason why you can't find them as well. Look at this photo from the official page https://www.vintagemicrophonepcbkit.com/CAM00133.jpg it's a polypropylene one.

vmanj · Sep 2, 2022

In the diagram, the output capacitor is labeled electrolytic.
And in various photos on the Internet, this capacitor seems to be electrolytic ..
Does this mean that this type of capacitor was used in the original ?

https://www.radiomuseum.org/r/telefunken_kondensator_mikrofon_ela_m251.html

Purplenoise · Sep 3, 2022

vmanj said:
In the diagram, the output capacitor is labeled electrolytic.
And in various photos on the Internet, this capacitor seems to be electrolytic ..
Does this mean that this type of capacitor was used in the original ?

https://www.radiomuseum.org/r/telefunken_kondensator_mikrofon_ela_m251.html

Most Wet tantalums look a lot like electrolytics and are also polarized.

vmanj · Sep 3, 2022

I understand, but this type of capacitor is hard to reach for me ..
Ordinary electrolytic capacitor will probably not be so good?

Delta Sigma · Sep 3, 2022

I ended up replacing mine with a film cap. The output cap should be 1uF, there is an incorrect schematic showing 3.2uF.

It's also very likely that what I originally preferred in an output cap type, was actually a preference of value. Getting the right cap value is much more important that the dielectric. You're probably best off buying film caps of different values rather than buying differeny dielectrics.

DIY Telefunken ELAM 251 Capacitor Type Question

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