Re: protecting a 4 pack mot stack

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

Original poster: "Virtualgod" <mike.marcum-at-zoomtown-dot-com> 

I have with a 6-mot stack under mineral oil. Not really a TC, I was putting
the caps (6 in series, so about 200 nF, 12.6 kVAC) across the output to get
longer (20") arcs in a jacob's ladder setup with a loud crack at the top
when the arc broke. Only partially knowing what I was doing at the time, I
didn't realize I was canceling most of the effects of the shunts (popping
240v, 30A breakers after 5-10sec runs) and introducing nasty transient
spikes when the gap broke. After a few minutes total run time (reset the
breaker probably 50 times or so) I heard a few gurgling bubbles (like icy
french fries dropped in a fry daddy) and the container was filled with
smoke. Was fun and scary while it lasted.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
To: <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
Sent: Wednesday, March 31, 2004 7:41 PM
Subject: Re: protecting a 4 pack mot stack


 > Original poster: "Christoph Bohr" <cb-at-luebke-lands.de>
 >
 > Hello Eric.
 >
 > I run my MOT stack without any filter options except a simple safety gap.
 > Although the terry filter is
 > a very good design to protect NST's I fell like MOTs are a lot less
fragile.
 > In most cases everything else will be on fire long before the MOTs even
 > start to feel uncomfortable.
 > A safetygap however is too cheap as you will like to save money on this
 > point.
 >
 > Would be interesting to hear if anyone ever destructed a MOT stack during
TC
 > use and if there
 > were cases of violent failure modes..... arcs under oil...?
 >
 > Best regards.
 >
 > Christoph Bohr
 >
 >
 >