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Re: Fair caps test
Hi Robert,
(from Robert W. Stephens reply to the Fair cap test)
>I think that the conclusive test
>will be in an actual tuned Tesla coil that has been used tuned with
>capacitors of known quality previously so that the spark ouput length
>can be used as a performance gauge.
Good idea. It would be interesting to try this with other commercial caps. My
flat plate cap was pretty anemic, and almost anything would have been an
improvement.
>If this capacitor
>were the desired polypropelene in silicon oil, there would be no
>detectable dielectric heating from your test, although the terminals
>might still get warm.
Ahh...now that's the type of thing I was wondering about. Having only run my
own homemade caps before, I don't have much to compare the Fairs to. Your
point about the delay in heat transfer from the inside to the outside of the
cap makes a lot of sense too. It took quite a long time to cool down
afterward.
>As I recall, these capacitors were quiite expensive, was it $100.00
>for a 0.01 mfd?
Yes, they are expensive. As I was mentioning to another person here, when you
compare them to new CP caps, the price is not very competitive. Particularly
when considering how many you'd need. I just got a bit impatient waiting for
the CP group order to be resolved, while blowing holes in my flat plate cap.
>Finally, I am suprised that your neons did not fail during the test
>as described. You were feeding some whicked high frequency RF back
>into those fragile transformers, apparently without the protection of
>series RF isolation chokes.
I did have a pair of big air core chokes on the neons. Sorry...forgot to
mention that!
>the high EMI field in the vicinity of the capacitor in the test you described
may well
>permanently scramble the delicate electronics of the thermometer.
I've seen it happen several times to watches, kitchen appliances, etc. I was
thinking more in terms of measuring temperature after the test.
Thanks for the comments!
Charles Brush