Re: Capacitors

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

Original poster: "Mike Waddick by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>" <mikew-at-winternet-dot-com>

terry, tim,

I agree with Terry totaly. I have made a homebuilt cap and it was big. I had
it in a big plastic container and was filled with gallons of oil. I once
spilled the oil out and man was it messy. It weighed about 150 pounds
(atleast) i trashed the thing before every using it.

I then bought some caps from Mike Novak who did a bulk buy. I used these
caps in a MMC that costed me about 80 dollers in teh end.

i used to buy my caps from Hosfelt electronics. there GE caps that were 3kv
at .1mfd. These were nice little caps. And very cheap. Once i informed Mike
Novak he canceled his order for the caps from teh bulk buy and went out and
bought over 200 dollers worth of these caps. So with all the buying of these
caps i bought out the last ones that had.

do you know what size cap you will need? i made some strings that are
mounted on acrylic strips and are rated at .01 at 30kv and have drilled
brass hook ups.
i would be willing to sell you one of these strings for 20 dollers, they
should last awhile

mike
----- Original Message -----
From: "Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
To: <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
Sent: Thursday, December 21, 2000 9:34 PM
Subject: Re: Capacitors


> Original poster: "Terry Fritz" <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>
>
> Hi Tim,
>
> Welcome to the wonderful world of coiling!!
>
> Your transformer is perfect but be sure to use safety gaps across it so it
> does not burn out.  Tesla coils and caps can interact to create high
> voltages that can destroy an unprotected transformer.  A fancy filter is
> nice like the ones below but a simple safety gap is the minimum.
>
> http://hot-streamer-dot-com/TeslaCoils/Misc/NSTFilt.jpg
> http://hot-streamer-dot-com/TeslaCoils/MyCoils/BigCoil/protection.jpg
> http://hot-streamer-dot-com/TeslaCoils/MyCoils/SmallCoil/small_protection.jpg
>
> I "think" your LDPE sheets need to be like 60 to 90 mils for a 15kV NST!?!
> I am not an expert on this but others will chime in here.  I do want to
> point out that another brand new kind of primary cap called the MMC is a
> far better choice IMHO.  They have obsoleted the oil filled poly caps very
> quickly.  Information on this is at:
>
> http://hot-streamer-dot-com/TeslaCoils/MMCInfo/mmcinfo.htm
>
> Feel free to ask more questions because I am sure your have a bunch :-))
>
> Cheers,
>
> Terry
>
>
>
> At 08:04 PM 12/21/2000 -0700, you wrote:
> >Hi to All, My name is Tim Walrath. I am endeavoring to build my first
> >Tesla Coil. I have purchased a 15000 volt neon sign transformer that
> >puts out 450VA at 30MA. I am wanting to build my own capacitors. I am
> >planning on using LDPE sheets at 6mil thickness and aluminun roof
> >flashing for the conductor plates. I am purchasing some polypropylene to
> >make the cases and plexiglass to make the tops. I am having trouble
> >figuring out how to figure the capacitance needed for the caps- that is
> >how much LDPE to use between each conductor plate. Math never was my
> >best subject but I do want to be able to figure this out. Any help would
> >be appreciated. Thanks, Tim
> >
>
>