Re: MMC or Maxwell? Which is better?

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

Original poster: "Dr. Resonance" <resonance-at-jvlnet-dot-com> 


I've noticed there has been a lot of conflicting posts regarding commercial
energy discharge caps vs. MMC style caps.

Any style cap, Maxwell, PCI, or MMC will be damaged if mis-used.  I've noted
some experimenters admitting to have opened their sparkgap up to extremely
wide settings to obtain more output.  Others have removed the sec coil and
operated the primary circuit at extreme Q factors.

The bottom line is either cap will probably last the average experimenter
their entire lifetime IF the following conditions are met:

With MMC's, use 2.5 x Erms as a correct voltage rating.  No exceptions.
There is simply no reason to do this considering their low overall cost.
Use a Terry filter in all MMC circuits.

With Maxwell or PCI, both are designed with a 55 kV DC pulse rating, keep
the main sparkgap with a TOTAL max setting of 0.240 or less.  There is no
reason to go larger --- you don't gain much except stressing your caps and
NST or pole pigs.    Also, even with a potential xmfr or pole pig, always
use a resistive filter and a safety gap.  It's cheap and offers protection
in addition to confirming the proper tuning of your circuit.

Once caps are stressed in any fashion beyond their design intentions they
will slowly start to fail.

Experimenters have been blaming companies and caps far too long.  Use them
properly and forget about failures --- it just won't happen.  If everyone
does this failure complaints on this list will become ancient history.
Something perhaps for the archives.

Dr. Resonance

Resonance Research Corporation
E11870 Shadylane Rd.
Baraboo   WI   53913
 >
 > Guys - let's call a truce.  A Maxwell capacitor IS AN MMC!  The only
 > difference is there are typically more caps in series and more strings in
 > parallel to achieve more reliability, and they are packaged in a nice
metal
 > oil-filled box with nice HV feed-through insulators.  So we are talking
 > home-made vs commercially made MMCs.