[Prev][Next][Index][Thread]
Re: Blown Cap
Hi David and others,
You asked...
> Obvously the way to use homemade rolled caps is to build four and
> wire two in series and parrallel them for double the voltage rating.
> But at around $80 US per cap it is probibly wiser to just buy a
> commercial cap. Has anybody had any problems with the Condencer
> Products caps at 15KV?
Unfortunately, one of mine suddenly lost about 4nF during a run with
a particularly nice secondary on Saturday night. The sudden detune
caused the secondary to smoke at the base. On the surface it looks as
though one of the internal units has gone open circuit. I'll be
double-checking this tonight but there is little doubt. I replaced it
with my second unit and things were away again. I checked it with a
known inductance (8mH) to determine what it was. Bizarre in a way. I
wouldn't expect caps made for this kind of service to go open circuit
(or short for that matter, although that is how I would expect one
to fail).
This seems to be an isolated incident at this stage. I was using
it with a 12kV 60mA neon and the total gap length (two series gaps)
was 1/4" max.
Malcolm