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Re: Cap Safety
Terry Fritz, Adam, and all:
Regarding the topic of getting jolts from partially charged caps, I was
wondering about a certain practice I use to discharge my tank cap. I
have two pieces of 1" dia. PVC pipe, each about 3' long. A piece of
stranded wire is strung and taped from the tip of one pipe to the tip of
the other, to make a contraption that resembles a ninja's nunchuckas in a
way. :-) Each end of the stranded wire is exposed. To discharge the
capacitor, I use this wire, holding by the PVC handles, to short out the
cap.
A technichian who works high voltage experiments here at Texas Tech
taught me that. Is this safe? Is it redundant? Usually, it doesn't seem
to do anything, but about one time in 100, I will see it spark, because
the cap was charged. I suppose my NST has enough reactance that it
doesn't always discharge the cap immediately
It is always the first thing I do when I turn the coil off, since an
empty capacitor looks exectly like one charged with a lethal voltage.
Brent
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