Re: Geek .15uF caps Was: "plate" capacitors

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

Original poster: "Garry F. by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>" <garryfre-at-pacbell-dot-net>

Well, I did plenty of those plate caps. Maybe if I had a vacuum pump, I
could have made them work but they just blew out over, and over and over. I
didn't believe MMC were all that great till someone sent me one string, that
tripled my output compared to anything else I tried. I was a believer in
ceramic doorknob caps, but it even beat these to smithereens. Now, I'm not
saying MMC are the end all and be all of caps, just that if someone hadn't
sent me that MMC, I would probably not be coiling now, having spent on and
off trying to coil for the past 27 years, I have never had a cap that lasted
me more than maybe a couple of weeks and that was short runs of less than 30
seconds. I've had this cap I am using now, for about 4 months and its still
growing string. If you don't over volt the thing, there is no damage to heal
in the first place.

I must admit, tho, after making about 18 caps, at least over the years only
to have little more than grief, I still flinch when I turn on my coil.

I have heard of MMC's made from ceramic doorknob caps. I heard they work
great.

I do like the spark that I get from a doorknob cap. It's a solid spark like
a huge 8" blue spark of the solidity you might get from an NST cept for the
different color. No visible sparks going back and forth, just one solid
steady spark.I think that's because of a higher break rate attributable
possibly to a higher charge discharge rate. It sounds higher pitch if I
remember, but when your spark is 8" compared a 3" spark, with MMCs, the
spark consists of not one solid spark, but two or three sparks that look
like lighting, jumping back and forth, I'll take the latter any day.

Thing is, my experience with MMCs (Except the one I built because the caps
were substituted with unsuitable caps), has been very gratifying.

I have noted a bit of mud slinging back and forth between others. Whatever
ones opinion is, it isn't proven by mud slinging, rather, when I see this,
it saddens me, Infighting is a major cause for the breakup of many of a
group. I thought I was the only one here that had a bit of a problem with my
mouth. When I read someone who is happier and gets better results from a
type of cap that isn't MMC, I am glad for their success.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
To: <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
Sent: Sunday, April 22, 2001 1:18 PM
Subject: Re: Geek .15uF caps Was: "plate" capacitors


> Original poster: "by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>"
<uncadoc-at-juno-dot-com>
>
> Hi David, Terry;  All,   So in other words, you are saying the MMC's will
> NOT handle long duration current usage in a Tesla unless you seriously
> under-rate them for current? They start to fail, first just one or two of
> the caps, then several more; then a whole bank breaks down after five
> minutes  Therefore, you must double, triple, or quadruple strings of the
> MMC's just to borderline handle a long sustained run of a few minutes or
> more?  Gee, sounds awful expensive to have a MMC bank that will give more
> than a few minutes action.