I'm looking for a source of affordable film/poly/orange drop capacitors, being the broke student that I am. Does anyone have a favorite supplier that sells caps with long enough leads for point to point wiring, at quantity? Im tired of buying caps two or three at a time, and paying dearly for it. Any suggestions?

http://www.justradios.com/capacitors.html

Highly recommended.

If you're looking for buying in bulk of the more common sizes:

http://www.justradios.com/capkits.html

I also would highly recommend them got my schematic and capacitors for my tv from them and they were nice even after I asked a ton of questions. Also helped me after I got my order with a couple other questions.

Join a local antique radio club if there's one in your area. Many clubs buy capacitors in bulk and make them available at wholesale rates to their members. http://www.njarc.org/clubprograms.htm

--Dave

I've ordered from www.justradios.com around 5 times and they are great. Get your schematics and caps at the same time!

Another source you might try is Mouser (www.mouser.com). It's a full-line electronics distributor, but don't be frightened off by the vastness of their catalog. Of course, they carry a full selection of ye olde Sprague/Vishay Orange Drops, but in general so far I really like the CDE (Cornell-Dublinier) metalized polyester film caps that they also sell.

Nice things about the CDE's are:
- They're less expensive than Orange Drops-- and a significant quantity price break occurs at only quanity 10 (whereas you need to get 25 to hit the first discount level on Orange Drops at Mouser, and it's not as significant a break)
- They're considerably smaller than equivalent Orange Drops, which often makes them a lot easier to fit into compact places. Plus, their overall shape makes them less "bulky" than most values of Orange Drops. And, yes, they have nice long leads.
- They're more muted in appearance than Orange Drops. The epoxy coating on them is usually a dark orangey-brown color, which (in my opinion, at least) looks a lot less obtrusive in vintage equipment than the bright toxic-orange color of Orange Drops.

One negative about the CDE's is:
- They're not available in small capacitance values. The lowest value they offer in the 630V CDE film caps is .01 uF.

Also, due to their small size, I kinda wonder how well they handle really high current situations compared with Orange Drops, but so far it hasn't been a problem.

Anyway, your mileage may vary..!

Orange drops are a good choice on a budget. Probably about the cheapest decent sounding cap out there. Stay away from Solens though. IMO those are some of the worst sounding film caps I've ever heard.