RE: electrolytic caps

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

Original poster: "Chris Sartler by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <Chris.Sartler-at-adicon-dot-com>

Hi Paul the answer is....Absolutely NOT!  Electrolytic caps and AC is a bad
combination in any case.  One half of the AC sine wave will obliterate the
caps no mater how you hook it up.  It's not just the oscillations from the
coil ringing,after discharge, but the charging voltage polarities.  For on
half of the sine wave the charge voltage will be positive and the other half
of the sine wave the charge voltage will be negative.  During charging the
plates are acquiring a charge which means there is current flow.  If the
polarities reverse so does the charge current, therefore...BOOM no more
caps! :)  Now if you used some sort of series HV diode  well then maybe,
don't know for sure never tried it.  Would work in theory, but...now you are
only using half the available power...so your RMS power output drops to 1/2.

,Chris


-----Original Message-----
From: Tesla list [mailto:tesla-at-pupman-dot-com]
Sent: Friday, October 26, 2001 9:00 AM
To: tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
Subject: electorlytic caps


Original poster: "by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>"
<Xyme3-at-aol-dot-com>

i have often heard of the dangers of useing electrolytic caps with a TC. 
I know the potential dangers of H2 gas. If electrolytic caps were in an area
not anywhere near the TC, would there still be a problem with their use? 
I also am aware that electrolytic caps cannot tolerate reverse flow of
electricty. If the caps discharge across a spark gap, then would this not
protect the caps from reverse flow of electricity? 
Paul