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Andy
Reviewed in the United States on January 16, 2024
I've always wanted to use Vactrols in some of my designs - I've read a lot about them and how they add to the sound of a synthesizer.As for the specs, I really think it has to do with how they built these. They aren't "light-tight", so any ambient light of significant luminance causes really weird readings.Another issue is that there is NO documentation for these parts. So you'll have to wing-it.If you put the vactrol in a dark box, it should be 'stable' in the sense that you should get similar responses, but these are finicky to begin with, so your mileage may vary.They're relatively cheap, so may be worthy of a try.
Scrimshaw
Reviewed in the United States on December 13, 2023
I ordered VTL5C2 vactrols, but I’m not sure that’s what I got. First of all, they are not labeled with anything actually meaningful. The diode side and polarity is not marked, but you can notice that the leads on the diode side are characteristic “square” diode leads, with one longer than the other. This is the only clue to polarity, and only works until you clip the leads. . . then nothing is left to mark polarity. I prefer it to be marked on the component (like the seller shows in their picture, which is not representative of what I received).I tested each vactrol in a 5mA circuit (5V, 1k ohm series resistor), and got some odd results. Each vactrol’s on-resistance at 5 mA was around 200 ohms, ranging from as low as 180 ohms to as high as 240 ohms, but generally in the 200 ohm ballpark. When turning them off, I measured anywhere from about 25M to 40M after 5 seconds, and from 70M to >100M after 10 seconds.These parameters don’t really match anything in the vactrol data sheets, but maybe are closer to a VTL5C1 or a VTL5C9 instead. Of course, vactrols are notoriously inaccurate, but these should be closer to the VTL5C2 spec than they are. The off-resistance is just way too high at both the 5 sec and 10 sec marks (it should be around 1M), and the on-resistance is just a bit too low at 5mA (it should be a few kilo ohms).Also, the black casing is NOT light tight. I was getting odd readings until I covered them with my hand, and the dark resistance increased dramatically. I’m surprised the black casing lets so much light through. Under normal room lighting conditions, the off-resistance is around 5M for these.Overall, they’re usable if you aren’t too concerned with absolute accuracy, and you’re going to put them in a dark box. I’m only knocking off 2 stars overall, since vactrols are known to be squirrely components anyway, but I was hoping for a bit better. Final Rating: 3 stars.
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