Re: Commercial Pulse Caps vs MMC's

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

Original poster: "Malcolm Watts" <m.j.watts-at-massey.ac.nz> 

On 27 Feb 2004, at 16:01, Tesla list wrote:

 > Original poster: kd4lyh-at-bellsouth-dot-net
 >
 > To the List Members,
 >
 > This is just my opinion for what its worth. I think MMC,s are fine for
 > small coils. When you start dealing with power levels of 5KVA and up a
 > Commercial Pulse Cap designed for a Tesla tank circuit is the way to
 > go. I have 300 of the 942c .33ufd caps that I purchased from
 > Richardson Electronics. When I have the time I,d like to build a large
 > MMC to see how they hold up at 5-10KVA. I,d like to here from some of
 > you guys running MMC,s  at the power levels I mentioned. I still feel
 > a Commerical Pulse Cap is the way to go.
 >
 > Regards Jeff

In the end, it boils down to a matter of economics: which is the
cheaper if both are built to have the same ratings? For my money, the
MMC is the better option. If you are replacing home-rolled extended
foil caps like I did, the hassle of building new ones is gone (mine
were dry-fired by design and had definite lifetimes for a bundle of
reasons outside the scope of this post). If you are replacing a
commercial pulse cap and the MMC is conservatively designed and run,
you don't have to worry about losing all your money at once if a weak
unit fails (not to mention the inconvenience of an oily mess and hole
in the garage lining).

Malcolm