Re: bulk buy of super caps?

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

Original poster: "Malcolm Watts by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <m.j.watts-at-massey.ac.nz>

Hi Ken,

On 10 Sep 2001, at 19:01, Tesla list wrote:

> Original poster: "Ken Kanno by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>"
<presence-at-churchofinformationwarfare-dot-org>
> 
> Is anybody interested in the possibility of a bulk buy of larger HV caps 
> DESIGNED for Tesla Coil use? I'm thinking of 0.05uF at 20kVAC at upto 
> 200kHZ.

We've been that route before with mixed results. The company in 
question no longer sells to the Tesla community as there was some 
muttering about legal action following the failure of some of its 
capacitors. To clarify on that point: some apparently had some 
problem with internal connections - the company honoured its 
guarantee to the letter. I had both of mine replaced after 
experiencing anomalous behaviour in one. One or two others blew up 
from being overvolted and, I suspect, run at much too high a 
breakrate. I understood that the ones I received were rated for 
120BPS and mine were just some out of the whole batch.

 I've never played with a MMC, but I question the thin leads like you 
> find on a resistor, as opposed to the woven copper ribbon connections you 
> can find in a good energy discharge, or induction heater cap which better 
> match the copper tubing you use for a primary anyways. 

Good point - which is why I run a number of strings in parallel in 
the ones I've built. Different styles of caps are used for MMCs - 
metallized PP film, foil PP film etc. By the time the connecting 
leads of my MMCs come to a single termination at each end, it is hard 
to stuff them into 3/8" copper pipe. I've found they work very well. 
I wouldn't bother with oil-filled caps again.

Regards,
malcolm