RE: Capacitor died...i think

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

Original poster: "Peter Reid" <peter-at-reidconsulting-dot-com.au> 

Steven,

Running the primary of a Tesla coil on its own, can cause Tank
capacitors to die, unless they have a lot of head-room i.e. (very high
peak current handling capacity). The primary will ring down very slowly
and cause the capacitors to continue to carry current for many (100's)
of cycles, when the coil with the secondary may transfer all the energy
from the primary in say 6 cycles, the only reason the primary ringing
will actually decay is mostly resistive losses in the tank circuit, and
most of us try and keep the primary resistance as low as possible.

You can test the capacitor with a digital multimeter that is capable of
measuring capacitance. If the value has either increased or decreased by
say 15% from the specified value, I would say you've either shorted out
one of the dielectric between two of the plates, or caused some other
sort of damage. Make sure you fully discharge the capacitor before
making any measurements.

Regards

Peter Reid

Webpage: http://tesla.reidconsulting-dot-com.au
Email: peter-at-reidconsulting-dot-com.au



-----Original Message-----
From: Tesla list [mailto:tesla-at-pupman-dot-com]
Sent: Tuesday, 13 January 2004 10:51 AM
To: tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
Subject: Capacitor died...i think

Original poster: Steven <studbubba_2000-at-yahoo-dot-com>

Well, my tesla coil was running pretty good.....no overheating,
everything
in balance.  Using a 15kv  30 ma NST as input and getting 22" sparks.
the
tank capacitor was commercial from Plastic Capacitors.   I havent had
any
problems untill i ran the primary coil by itself.  I believe that the
capacitor has died and im not sure how to test it.......anyone have any
suggestions.