disruptor coil (was electrolytic caps)

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

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


In a message dated 10/26/2001 1:48:37 PM, tesla-at-pupman-dot-com writes:

<< 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 >>

I am not very knowledgable in the electrical field, thanks for the reply. I 
have been reading about disruptor coils and was wondering if any coilers 
would care to try the following experiment. 
  Telsa indicated that a disruptor coil could be used in the place of a spark 
gap to create a disruptive discharge. For those not familiar with this device 
a diagram of the coil can be found in the book "Research writeings and 
inventions of Nikola Tesla" by Martain. This book was available through 
Barnes and Noble. Basically a disruptor coil consists of two coil pairs wound 
on a wooden dowle and suspended in oil. From memory, a heavy guage wire is 
wound on the bottom (next to the dowle) and a smaller guage coil is wound 
over the top of the larger guage coil. This is repeated on the opposite end 
of the dowle. (As in a Tesla coil, the coils are not physically connected.) 
According to the book, this produces a disruptive discharge. Tesla used the 
coils in his experiments with carbon buttons also mentioned later in the 
book. My readings also indicate the disruptor coil may have been attached to 
a 480 pole generator to produce a high frequency.
Paul