Re: GE caps - the long answer ;-))

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

Original poster: dhmccauley-at-spacecatlighting-dot-com 

Your post answered itself.  The fact you said you bought these surplus sends
all kinds of warning flags that you are getting inferior capacitors.
Vendors typically release flawed products to the surplus market in a chance
to make up some of the losses.  Usually, tax right-offs cover these losses,
but in a lot of
instances, more revenue can be made by selling directly to surplus vendors.
I made a similar surplus purchase on those "blue" Ohmmite PowerMOX high
voltage resistors about
a year ago for about $0.50 each for 10MEG resistors.  I was surprised to see
they were failing left and right when I was using them with some MMCs i
built.  I called the vendor
with the lot number (printed on the resistors), and they indeed did scrap
these resistors due to an internal manufacturing flaw.

Dan

 > I've used the 42L's, (0.22 -at- 2000V) on my 5kVA pig powered coil.  Had to
run
 > 30/string so they'd last a reasonable amount of time. At 20/string their
 > life expectancy was a minute or two. (Ends blown out)  I bought them
 > surplus, (less than $1.00 each), so having to run 30/string wasn't such a
 > big deal.
 >
 > I should also mention that when using Terry's original 0.056uF Panasonic
 > caps I had to run 15/string, ("normal" was 8 to 10/string), or they'd
 > overheat and rupture the case. I suspect the reason I had to run so many
 > caps/string is that  my ballast, (Sears welder), was shoving a fairly
large
 > "inductive kick" into the caps, well beyond what one would think. As the
 > saying goes..... "your mileage may vary"!
 >
 > Jon Rosenstiel