Author Topic: Jupiter copper foil capacitor  (Read 30100 times)

Offline brenden

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Jupiter copper foil capacitor
« on: March 23, 2015, 01:19:05 PM »
I have had some .01 copper foil Jupiters  and decided to give them a run as bypass caps to get a handle on the  sound quality .I initially placed 2 in my preamp to start with ,and put another 2 in if I got a good result .They replaced some exotic polystyrene copper foils which are my reference in plastic film and foil caps .
   
   Without any burn in it was clear these caps are extraordinary .There was an amazing amount of detail being uncovered .For the first few hours  these caps were bright ,and it was clear they needed burn in time. After that ,they flipped to the opposite , being  overly rich or warm for a few more hours .

 Once they began settling they became quite  neutral .These caps have harmonic beauty ,wonderful detail and low level information, and unusual ability to unravel musical lines .Dynamics were also in the top class .
     For a small bypass application  I would place these in the very highest echelon of caps .

   So ,I decided to install the other two .Then disaster struck .After bending the lead to install it ,it just  snapped off in my hand .

WTF.     These arent cheap .  The lead broke off right at the epoxy end cap .I hope this isn't going to be a fault with these and it turns out to be a one off .

   Anyway ,its not worth the hassle to try and send it back etc ,so I decided to nibble away the epoxy end and see if it could be salvaged .  It looks good at this stage .I will use some of my own annealed silver wire  and solder it to the exposed foil  .
   It certainly looks  feasible at this stage .
   
            I have found that the character of capacitors is remarkably similar when used for both coupling and bypass .
  I am certainly encouraged by the sound quality to try some as coupling caps .I would avoid bending the leads close to the body in future ,but this shouldn't happen with good quality annealed silver .Hopefully it as just an isolated fault.
   I will keep U posted with my repair job and take a couple of photos .

Offline stevenvalve

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Re: Jupiter copper foil capacitor
« Reply #1 on: March 24, 2015, 12:58:03 AM »
.....................so I decided to nibble away the epoxy end and see if it could be salvaged...................

I had the same problem with a quality audionote cap, did as you did and got just enough wire to solder, worked fine.

Offline Jehuty

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Re: Jupiter copper foil capacitor
« Reply #2 on: March 24, 2015, 05:50:33 PM »
.....................so I decided to nibble away the epoxy end and see if it could be salvaged...................

I had the same problem with a quality audionote cap, did as you did and got just enough wire to solder, worked fine.

Yep same thing with my Duelund in my KillerDAC. You soldered it back after I butchered the lead!  >:(
Not all that matters can be measured, not all that can be measured matters.

Offline brenden

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Offline ozmillsy

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Re: Jupiter copper foil capacitor
« Reply #4 on: March 28, 2015, 10:07:16 AM »
Oh, its a little cutie.  Must have been a fiddly repair.
It's all about the music,, not the equipment.

Offline brenden

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Re: Jupiter copper foil capacitor
« Reply #5 on: March 28, 2015, 08:23:51 PM »
 Not as hard as it looked Oz . There  was another photo I didn't post showing another step .The original wire termination was still intact ,but wasn't very strong .The original  solder joint covered roughly a quarter of the foil .
  To make it stronger I chose a similar termination to the old Infinicap  .This kind of termination is arguably superior and covered most of the foil .
    I first tinned the exposed foil .I  then tinned the coil of silver wire .That way I could get a very good  termination without exposing the cap to too much heat .Then I placed the tinned coil of wire onto  the cap and heated till it flowed onto  the tinned foil .The join is probably strong enough without needing epoxy ,so will probably just slide a little heat shrink over it .

    The price of these caps is still quite significant so was worth repairing  .I will probably use it somewhere it cant be seen though ,LOL

                 By the way ,Sonic Craft have these on special till the end of the month .They are a good buy for this standard of cap .  The great thing about these ,especially the .01 is the small size ,and you can fit them into places  where you couldn't  fit a Duelund

Offline stevenvalve

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Re: Jupiter copper foil capacitor
« Reply #6 on: April 11, 2015, 12:12:41 PM »
Not as hard as it looked Oz . There  was another photo I didn't post showing another step .The original wire termination was still intact ,but wasn't very strong .The original  solder joint covered roughly a quarter of the foil .
  To make it stronger I chose a similar termination to the old Infinicap  .This kind of termination is arguably superior and covered most of the foil .
    I first tinned the exposed foil .I  then tinned the coil of silver wire .That way I could get a very good  termination without exposing the cap to too much heat .Then I placed the tinned coil of wire onto  the cap and heated till it flowed onto  the tinned foil .The join is probably strong enough without needing epoxy ,so will probably just slide a little heat shrink over it .

    The price of these caps is still quite significant so was worth repairing  .I will probably use it somewhere it cant be seen though ,LOL

                 By the way ,Sonic Craft have these on special till the end of the month .They are a good buy for this standard of cap .  The great thing about these ,especially the .01 is the small size ,and you can fit them into places  where you couldn't  fit a Duelund
I scored 4 / 0.47 Copper, from sonic craft.  I will run them against the VSF. $1000 worth of caps for the leak was really over the top. $70 each seems more sensible, but do they cut it.

Offline brenden

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Re: Jupiter copper foil capacitor
« Reply #7 on: April 12, 2015, 08:22:25 PM »
I look forward to your comparison Steve.While the jupiters may not necessarily best the Duelund , they should give an excellent budget  alternative or where space wont permit  the use of duelunds .I picked up a few more  Jupiters from Sonic Craft as well.
   Dont forget the burn in. Used as bypasses mine  sounded quite bright initially, but changed  substantially in time .
« Last Edit: April 12, 2015, 09:57:15 PM by brenden »

Offline ozmillsy

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Re: Jupiter copper foil capacitor
« Reply #8 on: April 14, 2015, 08:11:09 AM »
Brenden, i am just browsing through the sonic craft website,   and i have noticed the jupiter solid core copper wire.

Have you tried it?

There is a particularly interesting one,   with waxed cotton dialetric,,,,,

http://www.soniccraft.com/product_info.php/jupiter-solid-copper-waxed-cotton-28-awg-p-1896
It's all about the music,, not the equipment.

Offline brenden

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Re: Jupiter copper foil capacitor
« Reply #9 on: April 14, 2015, 11:59:06 AM »
Hi Oz .I havent tried that one.I use silver that I have made in the US to my specs and then sheathed inpure natural  silk .
  I prefer 24 g if using single strand as it tends to balance the bass and highs better.
 The copper jupiter in cotton would likely  sound better than the bulk of plastic dielectrics including teflon based on my experience with natural dielectric,  and I am sure Jupiter would be using high grade wire.The Jupiter is  very well priced but best used in low level signal applications.

Offline ozmillsy

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Re: Jupiter copper foil capacitor
« Reply #10 on: April 14, 2015, 12:14:11 PM »
Interconnects?

I was thinking of giving that 28awg wire a try, in a pair of ic's that was a 4 wire braid (2+2).
It's all about the music,, not the equipment.

Offline zenelectro

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Re: Jupiter copper foil capacitor
« Reply #11 on: April 14, 2015, 01:04:12 PM »
Hi Oz .I havent tried that one.I use silver that I have made in the US to my specs and then sheathed inpure natural  silk .
  I prefer 24 g if using single strand as it tends to balance the bass and highs better.
 The copper jupiter in cotton would likely  sound better than the bulk of plastic dielectrics including teflon based on my experience with natural dielectric,  and I am sure Jupiter would be using high grade wire.The Jupiter is  very well priced but best used in low level signal applications.

Oz,

I have been looking for a decent solid core Cu wire for all new projects for quite some time now. Clearly un plated copper with cotton or
silk insulation is in the cross hairs but a big concern that no one seems to want to talk about is corrosion of the copper.
Normally copper will corrode slowly over time building up a slight oxide layer on the surface.

I can't find much info on it and haven't had any response from Jupiter directly.

Other alternatives:

- VH audio UPOCC with 'Airlok' insulation, a type of foamed insulation that gets closer to air dielectric.
- UPOCC with PTFE insulation
 
- Solid core Silver with whatever insulation (it doesn't corrode). Now before people here start belting me with the Silver = bright BS there are a few things to consider.

a/ I am talking solid core silver. b/ Many feel that the brightness is more related to the metal hardness, dead soft (fully annealed) being by far the best, ie; not brightl.
c/ Last week I did a listening test with a new amp I have built and a few different speaker cables. VDH silver cable was less bright and more musical than solid copper cables
to both of us. Dead soft temper, .999 purity, solid silver is easily available and not too expensive so I'm wondering if we have too hastily written off silver without fully
understanding / trying the variations available.

cheers

T

Offline PingPing

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Re: Jupiter copper foil capacitor
« Reply #12 on: April 14, 2015, 02:21:48 PM »
The copper foil Jupiter Caps are very very nice and much smaller than Deuland VSP :)

Offline ozmillsy

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Re: Jupiter copper foil capacitor
« Reply #13 on: April 14, 2015, 05:38:20 PM »
Clearly un plated copper with cotton or
silk insulation is in the cross hairs but a big concern that no one seems to want to talk about is corrosion of the copper.
Normally copper will corrode slowly over time building up a slight oxide layer on the surface.
I was thinking the waxed cotton would help reduce the corrosion/oxide build up?

Might not be as good as sealed teflon,  but perhaps a little better than the loose teflon tubing i am using or dry cotton dieletric?

I've ordered some, to see what it is like.
It's all about the music,, not the equipment.

Offline zenelectro

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Re: Jupiter copper foil capacitor
« Reply #14 on: April 15, 2015, 09:36:19 AM »
I was thinking the waxed cotton would help reduce the corrosion/oxide build up?

Might not be as good as sealed teflon,  but perhaps a little better than the loose teflon tubing i am using or dry cotton dieletric?

I've ordered some, to see what it is like.

Go for it Oz,

I was reading one persons experience in that even with very old un-plated copper / cotton wire, when you pry back
the cotton insulation, the copper is shiny underneath.

Unfortunately I don't have any very old wire to verify this.

T

Offline ozmillsy

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Re: Jupiter copper foil capacitor
« Reply #15 on: April 15, 2015, 05:38:21 PM »
I've seen that case (someone pulling back cotton on old wire), it's interesting isnt it.   Its an example where theory and practise dont necessarily align.

The other thing i have observed, is that stripping copper and feeding it into loose teflon tubing,  when i take this approach for making interconnects they tend to have top end zing, and they are also a bit dry sounding.  Brenden mentioned in another thread somewhere about sensitivity to vibrations when copper is in 'air'.  I'm hoping the waxed cotton dialetric gives me a nicer (less aggressive) top end to my bespoke IC's?   I'll post about it in a more appropriate thread, when i get the jupiter wire (got a shipping advise this morning, it's en route).
« Last Edit: April 15, 2015, 05:49:35 PM by ozmillsy »
It's all about the music,, not the equipment.

Offline stevenvalve

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Re: Jupiter copper foil capacitor
« Reply #16 on: April 23, 2015, 04:52:38 PM »
Guys about to install 4 of these Jupiter Copper Foil Paper & Wax Capacitors into the leak, does anyone know the direction when installing into an amp.






Offline springcreek

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Re: Jupiter copper foil capacitor
« Reply #17 on: April 24, 2015, 12:41:17 PM »
Craig does

Offline ozmillsy

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Re: Jupiter copper foil capacitor
« Reply #18 on: April 28, 2015, 01:40:30 PM »
  I'm hoping the waxed cotton dialetric gives me a nicer (less aggressive) top end to my bespoke IC's?   I'll post about it in a more appropriate thread, when i get the jupiter wire (got a shipping advise this morning, it's en route).
The Jupiter (waxed cotton) copper wire has arrived.    It looks to be pretty air tight to me.   It has 2 layers of cotton, an inner and outer layer, with the outer layer very heavily waxed.   It was actually difficult to trim off.

I cant workout if the inner layer has the same level of waxing? I need to strip it and take a closer look.  I only managed to strip the outer layer last night.   

Not sure when i can get around to making a pair of interconnects with this wire.  When i have a spare couple of hours, i'ĺl do it and take photos as i go.   Leave it with me.
It's all about the music,, not the equipment.

Offline zenelectro

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Re: Jupiter copper foil capacitor
« Reply #19 on: April 30, 2015, 09:02:16 AM »
The Jupiter (waxed cotton) copper wire has arrived.    It looks to be pretty air tight to me.   It has 2 layers of cotton, an inner and outer layer, with the outer layer very heavily waxed.   It was actually difficult to trim off.

I cant workout if the inner layer has the same level of waxing? I need to strip it and take a closer look.  I only managed to strip the outer layer last night.   

Not sure when i can get around to making a pair of interconnects with this wire.  When i have a spare couple of hours, i'ĺl do it and take photos as i go.   Leave it with me.

Oz, I received a reply from Jupiter WRT their cotton wire.

I'm pretty sure they are just covering their behind WRT not speccing any voltage rating on the waxed wire as vintage
Fender (and other) guitar amps used waxed cotton wire extensively with up to 450 volts DC.

Having said this, if you are using it in a DAC for high voltage applications and it's not fused, you have been warned. :)


Quote from Jupiter below:

Hi Terry,

The wire will oxidize, maybe faster than plastic insulated.  However, corrosion should not be an issue, it's 99.99% pure oxygen free copper.
The cotton braid does not offer much dielectric strength or voltage withstand and not rated for a particular voltage. I only recommend using it for line level or speaker hookup, ie low voltage, a few volts.