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Re: Condenser Products Capacitor (fwd)





---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 4 Mar 1997 09:00:27 +1200
From: Malcolm Watts <MALCOLM-at-directorate.wnp.ac.nz>
To: tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
Subject: Re: Condenser Products Capacitor (fwd)

Be happy to oblige Stan:

> Also, to the few that have had a CP cap blow, I'd like to collect in one
> thread the failure mode and positioning of the capacitor upon bursting.
> Could those of you that have had one go please email me the circumstances?
> Operating voltage, size of sec, etc., of course, but I'm more interested
> in physical positioning.  What was the orientation and proximity to the
> primary, and how close to ground?

One of my two units suddenly gained some capacitance detuning a 
running coil and setting fire to the base of it. Obviously one of the 
internal series units suddenly went very leaky. After some days it 
had settled back to a little above the value I measured when they 
first arrived. In fact, both had settled to the same value.
     The coil was running off a 12kV 60mA transformer. The primary 
tuning was offset low so there was erratic gap firing. The coil was 
putting out in excess of 3' at the time. The gap was set to no more 
than 16kV (cap rating 20kVAC). The cap was mounted horizontally and 
positioned about 1 foot away and normal to the edge of a flat spiral 
primary. The secondary was about 9" dia, 16" high. (Should make a 
great extra coil).

Malcolm