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Rotary testing 5-23-95



cc: tesla-at-grendel.objinc-dot-com

Richard,

I was doing some more testing last night and I think I learned something.  I
was using 2 12kv 30ma neons, one static gap and my large 33" discharger.
 Performance was good with 30 to 34" discharges.  Then I replaced the static
gap with the rotary and fired it up again.  Now I got worse performance than
I just had with the static gap.  I slowly decreased the speed of the rotary
and found a point where the performance was better than with the static gap.
 I had discharges in excess of 36" and they were hot.  This is about the time
I lost my last tank capacitor.  I thought I was being careful to keep the
voltage at about 10,000v - I must have screwed up.

I apparently have been running the rotary WAY too fast.  I noticed that I did
not get any loud pops (kickbacks?) out of the rotary with the neons.  When
that has happened before it has always been with the pole pig and when the
rotary was running at low speeds - at least speeding it up always made it
quit.

I talked to Condenser Products this morning.  My capacitor is back in the
oil.  They expect to test and ship it next week.  I hope so.  I asked them
what the dielectric thickness was and was surprised to hear it is only .025.
 They are using polypropylene where I used polyethylene .065 thick.  If I am
blowing my caps with more than twice the dielectric thickness, how can I
expect theirs to hold up?  Is this the difference between having the
dielectric fully impregnated with oil and not?

Let's talk again about fixing my capacitors since I now have two to fix.  I
am thinking about pulling the rolls out of the cases and hanging them up for
a day or two to get most of the oil out of them.  Then unroll them until I
find the puncture and put the patches in.  Do I need to fully unroll them and
wipe all the dielectric and flashing off?  Is there contamination in there
that I need to get out?  I will flush out the canisters and refill with clean
oil.

We tried several experiments last night aimed at producing ball lightning.  I
don't know if he has found any of the material that you mentioned yet or not.
 It's his project, I will let him do the research.  Most of what we did
consisted of trying to create an intense voltage field between a fixed plate
and a pan of salt water.  I did not see any balls except of melted electrode.

Ed Sonderman