What was the rating of condensers on early phones?

[Sargeguy]

I am referring to the ones that came prior to the 21-D, the big ones found in 101A subsets and TYPE 85 fiddlebacks.  1uF or 2uF or something entirely different?

[unbeldi]

I am referring to the ones that came prior to the 21-D, the big ones found in 101A subsets and TYPE 85 fiddlebacks.  1uF or 2uF or something entirely different?

Yes, I recall seeing several really big ones and some of those were rated at 1000V, IIRC, for railway installations, etc, but you probably have to examine each one specifically.  Any pics?

[Sargeguy]

This is the one I am talking about, seen here on a TYPE 101 subset:

[dsk]

I may be answering a little on the side of whats the really question are.  The oldest voltage rating I have seen was 500V (1920's German Siemens)
The microfarad size was limited by size, and usually not more than 2.  When the capacitor was used in the voice path, it was never big enough until the more compact came in the 302 era.

European phones was often designed to use a 1μF as a common ringer and voice path capacitor. This caused a slightly different anti sidetone circuit, and a REN load greater than 1 REN by US std.  Germany compensated this by using 60V ringing, most other countries used 80-90V just as US systems.

If you are going to use this info to substitute whats inside the can, I will suggest to use 4-5μF dor voice, and 0.5-1
μF for ringers. Try it out before you fill the can up with tar looking mass.

dsk

[Sargeguy]

Apparently the large condenser in a TYPE 101 is something like a 2uF/250v.  After more fiddling I realized that the ringer will not work until the lid of the subset is closed.  That should have been the first thing I checked!!!  I used my patented technique of accidentally breaking a wire off the condenser then using the condenser bypass tool to test the phone.  It worked under both conditions.

[tallguy58]

What type of coil is that??