BACKGROUND:
Sustainability is the name of the game! Anything (that has been tested and still appears to be functioning properly) should be repurposed creating saving in wasted Ee and reducing the poisoning our environment when items are buried in the earth at the local tip needlessly.
Never heard of Ee? It is a concept that creates a measurement of ALL things (not just electronics) that humans have made and the energy used in obtaining the raw material, processing the materials right through to a finished product and even should include the shipping of the item to the distributors/retailers.
If you would like to know more about Ee values, please take a look HERE
These miniature trimmer capacitors were removed from various communications modules used in the broadcast industry, in the RF filtering section as part of LC tuned circuits. They have been USED but have been tested
Testing was not easy to undertake and quite time consuming … my current C test facilities are somewhat downgraded these days and when it comes to measuring such small capacitance values, the accuracy of the measurments is questionable but at least I gained an idea of the “capacitance spread” of these little critters!
I have examined these visually very closely for any indications of who made them but came up “Nada Zero” on this score … most have a number stamped the underside but even within the body colour grouping, this number appeared to have no relation to the capacitance values being measured and varied between trimmers within the same colour grouping … perhaps a batch coding?
The original manufacturer of these communications modules was based in UK.
UNKNOWN MANUFACTURER – Trimmer Capacitor (1)
Country of origin is unknown (unable to be identified)
All trimmers, no matter the body colour, are of the same size and construction.
Through hole PCB (radial) vertical mounting with adjustment from the top
It appears the metal used for the vanes, adjustment cross-head slot is Brass
Totally encapsulated in a coloured plastic except for the very small opening at the top for adjustment. It is not possible to view the trimmer “in action” and this made measuring the capacitance more time consuming as I could not see where the vanes were in relation to each other. Continuous rotation so that there is no “start” or “stop” point when adjusting.
Termination: Radial 4mm leads for through hole PCB mounting
DIMENSIONS: 4.95mm height x 6mm diameter (one side flattened)
Packed into sealed clear plastic packets based on the body colour coding but I will send any quantity of each body colour i.e there is no need to purchase a whole pack of a particular colour.
TESTING:
Basic tests made of these trimmer capacitors appear to indicate that each colour designates a capacitance adjustment range for that particular colour …
Measuring such small capacitance was not easy with my limited tools these days, in fact I had to use a reference mica capacitor across the instrument test terminals and then add the trimmer under test in parallel to that reference capacitor and make sure allowances were made for test lead capacitances etc … it was all a bit “tricky”
I established the body colour coding as an indication of the maximum capacitance, being as follows:
RED 0~10pF
BLUE 0~15pF
GREEN 0 ~ 20pF
BROWN 0 ~ 35pF
I have differing quantities available of each colour code, use the selection boxes on this page to select both the type and the quantity of each trimmer you may wish to order.
The PCB pins are in reasonable condition, clean and mostly free of previous solder “dags”
NO damage to the plastic bodies observed
This is NOT an ongoing supply, once the current stock is exhausted there will be no further supply
*** Where the photograph shows multiple capacitors, this advertisement price is for ONE capacitor only – not everything that is shown ***