RE: MMC wiring

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

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

Hi Dan,

On 25 Feb 2003, at 10:57, Tesla list wrote:

 > Original poster: "Mccauley, Daniel H by way of Terry Fritz 
<teslalist-at-qwest-dot-net>" <daniel.h.mccauley-at-lmco-dot-com>
 >
 >
 > Chris,
 >
 > I see lots of people using some VERY serious bus-bar type connections at the
 > ends of their MMCs and a lot of people
 > will swear by this.  And it does  look very nice and professional, however
 > if you look at your MMC, any single series
 > connection between the capacitors is only by the capacitor lead itself which
 > is such a small conductor in comparison.
 > Its kind of like having an onramp to a major highway with 50 lanes and then
 > the highway itself is only 2 lanes.

Nice analogy. I should point out that the shorter the wire, the
higher the current density can be pushed as resistance is
proportional to length. This is done in SMPS transformers where short
lengths of wire per winding are the norm. The limiting factor has to
be the cap's current handling capability (based on temperature rise).
The basic idea then is, the longer the leads, the thicker they must
be in order to keep copper losses acceptably low. I have done this in
my MMCs where the leads from the cap PC boards to the outside world
are considerably longer than the cap leads running into the PCBds.

Regards,
Malcolm


 >
 > The Captain
 >
 >
 >
 >  >Ok, I want to make sure I'll do this right the next time so I won't repeat
 >  >the same mistake over, and over etc. What is the best way to wire two
 >  >strings of MMCs together? I'm thinking the simplest way would be to solder
 >  >a wire across the end leads, then solder the wires that go to the primary
 >  >and spark gap onto those new connections. Would this work? Is there a
 >  >better (not overly expensive) way?
 >  >
 >  >-Chris
 >
 > I use brass straps as shown at:
 >
 > http://hot-streamer-dot-com/TeslaCoils/MyCoils/BigCoil/big-MMC.jpg
 >
 > A hobby shop item.
 >
 > Cheers,
 >
 >           Terry
 >
 >
 >