RE: "plate" capacitors

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

Original poster: "Oxandale, Terry by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>" <Toxandale-at-SPP-dot-org>

I built two very nice 30nf plate caps, in  PVC cases, with all the
attention to details they deserved (vacuum, good oil, good connections,
etc). Both failed after a short but illustrious life (black oil, black
smoke, black day in Little Rock). I used triple the amount of dielectic
material of the DC rating, and thought I would be off the hook. Anyway
to make a long story short, I then built an MMC using the GE 3kv 100nf
caps sold by Hosfelt (built 18 strings being I did not know how reliable
they would be, but only needed 4) and have to date (with about 12 hours
total run time with some being 20 minute continuous runs) I have not had
a single failure. They don't even get warm. I'll never build another
plate capacitor ever! That's my story and I'm sticking with it. I even
changed my name to the guy to brought this wonderful idea to us (LOL).

(un)Terry

-----Original Message-----
From: Tesla list [mailto:tesla-at-pupman-dot-com]
Sent: Monday, April 16, 2001 6:06 PM
To: tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
Subject: "plate" capacitors


Original poster: "by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>"
<A123X-at-aol-dot-com>

The original party plate caps I built failed after a loose connection
burned 
the lid and wore through a peice of foil. I fixed the connection but I 
thought it would be difficult to get all the foil and smoke contaminated
oil 
out. The dielectric punctured after running for a short time. I'm
building 
another one, this time it will be 10nf so I won't need the MMC at all.
If I 
use al. flashing so everything lays flatter will I be able to get away
with 
not using oil?