Recycled HT caps

[Tubetec]

I wanted to give the tube heads with an eye on the environment a handy tip ,
Inside your standard disposable flash camera is a perfectly good HT cap with a rating of at least 300 volts ,
In most cases the flash has never even been used , so your getting a brand new component ,probably with very recent production ,
The Fuji cameras have a very high quality cap , I have a bunch of nearly 20 there now ,I'll have a look at the component tollerances later . but I wouldnt be surprised if they were 10%
Another plus is each camera also has an AAA cell in there to power the invertor, again if the flash was never used its brand new .
I also collected up all the small return springs and bagged them on the never never .
There is of course the optical parts and shutter that might be usable but everything else goes straight to plastic recycle .
Theres another brand of camera called Illford ,they have a really nice perspex black and white camera , I felt a bit ashamed to break it all up actually , reloading new film must be a possibillity . The boards on the illford are good old fashioned though hole , one contained a 120uf 330v and the other colour models had a 70uf , not quite as nice as the components from the Fuji units , but alot better for cobbling together a HT tickler supply .
My contact at the camera shop can save these things by the bag load for me , might as well take all I can get back for re-processing ,
todays recycling effort netted something in the region of 35 euros worth of components for about 30 minutes work popping the cases and desoldering ,obviously no delivery charge either , every ones a winner baby .

 

[Tubetec]

Heres a handfull of uf measurements
98.4
99.1
99.0
92.1
100.2
101.3
100.5
97.9
95.5
101
101.5
102
95
98.4
98.3
The lower value parts showed a tendency to rise in value over time ,other caps snaped to stable values relatively quickly , probably from cameras where the flash had been energised during use . Excellent tollerance for electrolytic components whether or which , whats not stated is voltage or opperating temp , safe to assume these are at least 300v in any case .
Illford (Harmon) HP5 below , slightly more interesting regarding the invertor circuit , it has three transistors so performance may well be better than the usual single transistor units , might be a schematic around ,
Im figuring out how to re-load new film into one these things ,its shamefull waste of a very well enginered piece of kit . Harmful Harmon you should be ashamed of yourselves.

 

[fazer]

I use to use photo flash caps in tube amps. I didn’t get them from disposable cameras but you could buy 100uf 300v at surplus stores in the 80s and 90s dirt cheap. I would replace the series connected 70uf 350v caps that got tired in old blackface and silverface fenders. They worked great and in series you had a solid 50uf at 575v working caps.

 

[Tubetec]

Cheers Fazer ,
Ive put modern radial caps in a few vintage Fenders , the bathtub cap setup makes it a nice straightforward job .
Marshalls are a little akward because of the 50+50 uf blue caps they used supply are no longer available .
I was able to order spares directly from Marshall a few times and I re-capped all my 70's amps , thats close on 30 years now so it might be time to replace them again . I'd prefer not to bother with all the crap and mess of having to clean out the old caps and re-stuff them with modern radials At the same time the modern replacements for the dual or three section caps are crazy money and quality is probably questionable , a small strip of FRP board with a few riveted eyelets strategically struck and hard wire linking the components would allow you to make up a composite component with balancing resistors included , maybe 40mm upvc plastic pipe with glued end caps would do as the can . Come to think of it , if I have a sustainable supply of capacitors at almost no cost , producing a good quality direct replacement for the old Marshall 50-50 cap could be a very smart move , The guy processes around 20 units a day , so thats potentially 5x50+50uf composite components , if I got those out in the mail every morning it would be a nice little earner and of course the green credentials are impeccable, your in carbon credit from the get go . You could probably wangle funding/tax breaks from government but they'll want to shove their pinnochio nose where it doesnt belong and take a filet of your soul along with it, F that for a game of soldiers :-O

 

[Lee_M]

Marshalls are a little akward because of the 50+50 uf blue caps they used supply are no longer available .
I was able to order spares directly from Marshall a few times and I re-capped all my 70's amps , thats close on 30 years now so it might be time to replace them again . I'd prefer not to bother with all the crap and mess of having to clean out the old caps and re-stuff them with modern radials At the same time the modern replacements for the dual or three section caps are crazy money and quality is probably questionable

F&T in Germany makes some nice 500v dual section caps, available in a few different values, including 50+50uf. They're also blue, so should look fairly close to the original LCR caps, if that matters to you

https://www.banzaimusic.com/F-50uF-x-50uF-500V.html
They're not super cheap, but they're not prohibitively expensive either. Definitely a lot less painful to buy than those CE manufacturing multi-section caps.

 

[Tubetec]

Thanks Lee ,

The F&T is good value considering I payed around 2 STG for LCR's from Marshall 25 or more years ago . They are a bit shorter than the originals but thats nothing to worry about .

 

[Tubetec]

I was able to refine my technique dismantling the cameras ,
I did around 250 units in a few hours this morning , Ive ended up with two bags of caps ,
One Japanese made , mainly 100uf but a handful of 120uf also , another bag Chinese made , 70uF ,80uF,120uF . All are 330vdc ,temperature rating is undetermined .
That was around a weeks supply from the print shop , he has another full bag waiting for me by now , I only have to pick it up .

Finding way of cobbling the components from the left over flash boards into a stomp box of some sort seems to make sense , a scrapheap challenge .
Below are the components from the three most common flash boards I get ,


15K
15ohm
100ohm
1M
1K
4.7M
220ohm
223k 400v cap
2SD965 transistor (illford)
UTC 2740L transistor (fuji)
1265uH 20 ohms eht coil (fuji)
2.7mH 40 ohms (Illford)
2.66mH 26.5 ohms (illford)
inductors measured with the XJW-01 1khz , 100 hz gave very similar values .

A funky modulator pedal kit with a PT2399 delay and a strobe built into it would be nice , it could be called the 'Flashback', any bright ideas welcome !

what you see below is the result of about 80 liters volume of cameras reduced down , two bags of AA and AAA batteries, the caps in the middle , a sample of the different boards in front and bagged into two lots behind .