Re: dielectric strength of hot glue was Re: Longitudinal Waves

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

Original poster: "Terry Fritz" <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>

Hi Jim,

At 06:26 AM 2/15/2002 -0800, you wrote:
>I seriously doubt that hot glue would have anywhere near the breakdown
>strength of a sheet of acrylic plastic the same thickness.  While you might
>not see bubbles, they are probably there.  Also, I think most of the hot
>glues are a composite of several substances: binders/fillers/etc. which does
>not bode well for breakdown strength.
>
>Also bear in mind that thin sheets of a material typically have a much
>higher breakdown strength (in a kV/cm sense) than thick sheets.
>

I "think"* hot glue is polypropylene dissolved in paraffin wax.  It may
indeed have very good voltage standoff.  I have never had a problem with it
breaking down or tracking sooner that it should.  But different
manufacturers may do very different things too.

*I checked some MSDS sheets for it but they only list paraffin and they
seem to hide the ingredients...  They probably want to keep it a 'secret'
like the manufactures of carbonated flavored sugar water :-)))  I supposed
there is a patent for hot glue that tells all...

I note that in another post today Antonio Carlos M. de Queiroz calls hot
glue an "excellent insulator" so maybe he knows what it is.

I don't mean to get a big thread started on hot glue, but it does hold a
few of our coils together ;-))

Cheers,

	Terry