Capacitor Help Needed

["Tesla list" <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Original poster: "Wilson Ng" <metalstorm2002@xxxxxxxxxxx>



 Hello list members.

    I have had bad experience with my capacitors. My first one that
worked okay with my tesla coil was a jellyroll cap made from plastic
baggies and metal foil tape. It works well up to about 3 kv. Beyond
that, there will be smoke and popping sounds. Adding additional baggies
for the dielectric decreased the capacitance dramatically. Later I
tried MMCs with a string of 30 200v 2uf metalized polyester 
capacitors. It was just
a test to see if the setup works. After several seconds, I smelled
smoke even though the test voltage was only 3kv! I've also tried
foil wrapped bottle caps but it was messy and one bottle cracked.
UGGHH!

    After sorting a while through the pupman archives, I was unable
to find anything other than glass bottle caps, MMCs, and homemade
plate caps. These caps have downsides:

     MMCs                 - expensive
     bottle caps          - messy and lossy
     plastic/plate caps  - a pain in the ass to make and not very
                                reliable
     rolled caps           -   not reliable
     Microwave cap MMC   - possibility of explosion

My question is, is there another way to make a reliable,
cheap, and effective cap without breaking my bank?