RE: Electrolytic Capacitors for Tesla coil power supply ...

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

Original poster: "Steve Conner" <steve.conner-at-optosci-dot-com> 

 >  Raj : you dont have a small RF Choke between your power supply and your
 >spark gap/capacitor to block power arc problems.

I think the system Raj is talking about is solid-state :-P

  > The current drawn by the inverter+Tesla coil primary would be 15 Amps.
  > I'm planning to use the capacitor to filter the noise produced by the
tesla
  > coil inverter.

I have seen systems like this made with only like 10uF of capacitance
(high-quality plastic film) This gives a good bypass for the 100's of kHz HF
current but doesn't smooth the 100/120 Hz mains ripple at all. Solid state
coils actually seem to work better off unsmoothed pulsating DC, in fact some
people even use halfwave rectifiers. If you use large electrolytics to give
smooth DC, the coil gives more of a flame than a spark, and overheats very
quickly.

Even if you do decide to use electrolytics, you should use the plastic film
capacitors too, mounted as close to the bridge as possible.

Steve C.