Re: new to the hobby

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

Original poster: "BunnyKiller by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <bigfoo39-at-telocity-dot-com>



Tesla list wrote:

>Original poster: "Chris by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>"
<chris-at-atomic-pc-dot-com>
>
>Hi everyone,
>
>My name is Christian Thorsten and I'm a computer consultant (graduated
>from college as a biochemist, though)- but I've long had an interest in
>electricity and electronics.  My first attempt at a Tesla coil was about
>3-4 years ago, though I based most of it on reprinted 1916-1925 texts
>(try not to cringe!!).  It didn't work all that great, but it made some
>ozone and NO2..  
>
snipperz...

Hi Chris...

the capacitors are the hardest hit item of the Tesla Coil system....   
even I as a newbie went and built my own homemade cap ( even tho most 
everyone was telling me not to) several times ...  I thought I had the 
"system beat"  with one cap I built but low and behold the wisdom of the 
elders of T coiling managed to seep back into the layers of my best 
built poly-pro film cap and show me that what I thought was a fantastic 
cap was merely a obscure moment, a wrinkle,  in the time continum  of 
 hi power pulses which made mincemeat of my cap. ( darn that sounds good 
;) )

best bet   dont waste the money on several home built caps ...  go ahead 
and spend the initial investment on either some good Maxwells or the 
infamous MMC cap....

If you have no choice but to build your own cap....   build a plate 
style cap..  rolled caps are notorious for failure ( but then again so 
are plate caps )  but rebuilding plate caps are easier. just replace the 
sheets of pitted, burned, melted poly-pro....

i was going to make a salt water cap but I dont drink beer and the 
number of Meyers Rum bottles needed would have cost me more than a new 
MMC cap ;)

and BTW    I would say home built caps have a 30% efficiency compared to 
MMC or Maxwells...


Scot D