Re: Water capacitor, was: Re: General Questions

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

Original poster: "Dr. Duncan Cadd by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>" <dunckx-at-freeuk-dot-com>

Hi Matt!

>Way back in school, a friend of mine in metallurgy fabricated a
>berylium-alloy softball bat at a cost of about $400 that worked
almost as
>well as a $20 plain aluminum bat, but was a lot prettier.

Ah yes, but just think of the neutrons he could've generated by
bombarding the bat with alpha particles :-)

>Am I missing
>something, or are super pure deionized water caps and their
supporting
>equipment for Tesla Coils sort of the same kind of project?

You ain't missin' much more than a Camp Perry rifleman with a 28/30
Ballard, Pope barrel, big Unertl and a crow sat at 20 yards.
[Ideally, for emphasis, the voice should rise and fall through at
least one octave when saying this.]  Personally, I'll stick with my
ex-British Admiralty WW2-vintage mica transmitting caps and if I ever
do change them, it'll be for an MMC or something else with a cheap,
solid, low loss, non-fussy, fit-and-forget, modern plastic dielectric!

This water discussion has brought out some interesting comments, some
very nice bits of science/engineering a few of which were news to me,
and reminded me of things I'd forgotten a long time ago, but no way do
I consider water caps a practical proposition for Tesla coil use, and
probably not for much else either, though I should be delighted if
someone did an experiment and proved me wrong.  *But* it's good and
stimulating to talk and listen :-)

In the "boondocks" of Britain
Dunckx