Re: EMI filter hookup

["Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>]

Original poster: "Albert Hassick by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>" <uncadoc-at-juno-dot-com>

Gary.  I too have had these 30amp Corcoms die on me. Some died instantly.
 Yeah, They are cheap to get.  But I now use two of them in
parallel/reverse and have had no problems since.  One filter alone seems
to die a sudden death with Tesla use. (with a 15kv 120ma modifid supply).
 I unpotted a blown one just for the heck of it.  Soaked it for a week in
87octane gasoline.  It was a gumbo of tar.  After soaking it a bit in
some new kerosene the thing finally came clean.  Wonder of wonders!  The
two of the ceramic disc caps each had one lead nonexistent and not even
connected to the coils. I took extra special pains when removing the
tarry filter mass from its metal enclosure, so I know for certain that I
did not disturb any of the wire or components of the filter assembly. 
Now, did the ceramic capacitor leads melt off clear back into the ceramic
body of the cap, or were the leads never there to begin with? I cannot
see where they were ever connected in the first place. There is no
portion of the filter that has a solder nub that would indicate where the
cap leads had originated from before they vanished!    The rest of the
filter is real heavy copper wire (looks like a little bigger than 14ga.
but smaller than 12ga. perhaps a metric size) and a set of four blue
1.5uf "OKAYA" high volt epoxy filter caps.  Maybe some of them went bad. 
But I still cannot find were the missing single leg of the ceramic disc
caps were even soldered to.  Maybe, this is why these filters are so
cheap to come by, maybe they are fallouts. OR maybe the Tesla coil use
completely disintegrated one set of leads to the ceramic caps.  One thing
I know for sure is that they will not take even a 10 amp continuous run
for more than a few minutes without opening up.   What is puzzling is
that the input to output connections are wound and coupled through a
paralleled set of five windings upon a two and a half inch toriodal core
directly soldered to the next quint wound toroid.  The set of five heavy
windings in parallel are totally intact and coupled from input toroid to
output toroid with no breaks in the wire. So I still cannot figure out
why the filter would not at least pass current, even though its filtering
capacity had been extinguished.  Maybe they short out to the ferrite
cores, the cores are also wound on some sort of clear thin
insulating/buffering tape upon which the windings are affixed.  AL.
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