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RE: DC Resonance Charging Advice Sought



Original poster: "Dave Kyle by way of Terry Fritz <teslalist-at-qwest-dot-net>" <dave-at-kyleusa-dot-com>

I agree. I am going to add an additional resistor which should reduce the
time to 15 minutes or less. I will measure the time reduction to ensure the
discharge time meets expectations.

A friend suggested that I also add a discharge switch to immediately safe
the smoothing capacitors for just the purpose you suggest. That way
adjustment can be made immediately. I will investigate this.

Dave

=========================================
Dave Kyle
Austin, TX USA
Email: dave-at-kyleusa-dot-com


-----Original Message-----
From: Tesla list [mailto:tesla-at-pupman-dot-com]
Sent: Tuesday, August 12, 2003 5:12 PM
To: tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
Subject: Re: DC Resonance Charging Advice Sought

Original poster: "Crow Leader by way of Terry Fritz <teslalist-at-qwest-dot-net>"
<tesla-at-lists.symmetric-dot-net>

----- Original Message -----
From: "Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
To: <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
Sent: Tuesday, August 12, 2003 9:52 AM
Subject: RE: DC Resonance Charging Advice Sought


  > Original poster: "Dave Kyle by way of Terry Fritz <teslalist-at-qwest-dot-net>"
<dave-at-kyleusa-dot-com>
  >
  > Thanks for the feedback. Yours is the first advice I have seen that
suggests
  > the sizing of the smoothing caps. I admit the smoothing caps value was
  > pretty much determined by finding a good deal on eBay and you may be
right
  > that it is over kill (pun intended) in this application.
  >
  > To be honest the DC supply scares me to death which is probably a good
  > thing. Obviously it is certain death to contact almost any part of it
while
  > it is on with or without the caps. My main concern is to safe the caps
after
  > operation to ensure inadvertent contact does not result in tragedy.
  >
  > I have bleeder resisters (two 100 megaohm 3 watt -at- 15KV in parallel) in
  > place on each cap that take the smoothing caps with a full charge to safe
  > values in about 35 minutes.

This seems like a long time. Pretend your tesla coil was completely
harmless. When making adjustments, you'd probably want to wait less than 35
minutes after powering it off to make changes. Unless you're amazingly
patient, it sounds like you might eventually get tired of waiting 35 minutes
and start shorting the caps out yourself. The whole "safety" is then
defeated. Utility company caps are designed to drop to 50 volts or less in 5
minutes. I'm not sure if it's some NEMA standard, or who else uses it, but
it sounds reasonable. Microwave ovens drop to safe voltages in just a few
minutes as well.

KEN