Re: power factor correction?

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

Original poster: "by way of Terry Fritz <teslalist-at-qwest-dot-net>" <Tesla729-at-cs-dot-com>

In a message dated 7/7/03 4:07:52 PM Pacific Daylight Time, 
tesla-at-pupman-dot-com writes:

>This describes my cap from the dump! Mine is the size of a fat, black soda 
>can.
>Well what now? It works so "if its not broke don't fix it".
>Unless, that is, I can expect to get better sparks.
>
>Read you later
>Josh


Josh,

Can you tell us what the voltage/capacitance rating of your mystery
"black soda can" cap is? If it is a non-precise cap rating (ex: 145-210 ufd)
as opposed to a single 35 uFD or 50 uFD rating, then it most likely is
a non-polarized electrolytic START cap. If this is indeed the case, then
the real mystery is why isn't your cap smoking within 15 seconds ??
The only thing that I could figure is that the voltage rating is much
higher than what you are using it for, so the short duty cycle design
doesn't come into play as much (i.e. like you are applying to 120 volts to
a start cap unit rated for 330 VAC)

David Rieben