Re: Homemade Caps are a Health Risk?

["Tesla list" <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Original poster: Frank <fxrays@xxxxxxxxxx>

A good running TC will produce ozone at a significant rate , far more 
than anything to be concerned with SW caps.

The concerns over SW caps and ozone is mute as compared to the overall system.

If you want to build a coil and use SW caps to get on line, then go 
for it and have fun!

As mentioned in one of the posting,  long neck beer bottles make a 
great cap and fun while getting the bottles!

Tesla used massive banks of SW caps for his coils, they were the only 
thing to handle the power he was playing with.

I restored an antique medical TC that used 4 ea quart sized SW caps. 
There was never any noticeable ozone from the caps and the high 
frequency output did a good job of ozone production.

Now, there are some concerns with SW caps:

1) They tend to get hot and boil off the solution. They are a high 
loss cap and will heat up.
The SW vapor is corrosive to any metal around them, after a period of 
time, it will eat thru copper wire or tuning.
Float some oil on top of the solution to keep evaporation down. This 
was what was done 100 yrs ago.

NEVER have sealed  individual cap containers, they must always be 
vented and make sure the vent diameter is such it will not seal off 
with crystals.

2) A single cap can explode without warning. Minute flaws, such as 
air bubbles in the glass, impurities, stress cracks, dirt and etc can 
weaken the glass and when in use, as they heat up, it is possible to 
have an arc puncture the glass. You do not want glass possibly flying 
around but more importantly, you do not want conductive salt 
water  splashing  around to other parts of the system, the results 
could be spectacular!
Make sure the bank is contained in some sore of heavy walled box.

They are heavy and bulky. No getting around this.

Another advantage of putting the bank is some sort of box, 1/4" 
plywood would work well, is it also would contain any ozone produced 
and it would bleed out gradually thru your vent.

Normally, these caps are in parallel to get the system capacity you 
need as individual capacity values are small.

There are a couple ways to get the caps in parallel:

1) The simplest way is to put the desired bottles in a large plastic 
wash bin and fill the bin with salt water. It is cheap and quick. The 
cap is bulky and hard to move and the capacity is not as good as it 
could be for the size.

2) The best way is to wrap some 0.010" thick by 6" tall brass shim 
stock on the outside of each bottle and solder the seam. then solder 
a wire from each brass to the next.
You can also series or parallel the caps this way much easier to fine 
tune your coil.
The bottles could be put in a divided container for storage and 
handling. It is a lot less messy and much lighter!

Use a saturated solution of salt water to fill the bottles. I make 
mine by heating a pan of water to boiling and then back off the heat 
to a simmer. Add salt and stir. If the salt dissolves, keep adding 
small amounts and stir until you cannot get any more salt to dissolve.

Frank



At 10:45 PM 4/2/2007 -0600, you wrote:
> Original poster: Yurtle Turtle <yurtle_t@xxxxxxxxx>
>
> I've built several large scale ozone facilities. In
> general, you'll develop a headaches and start wheezing
> and want to leave the area before any permanent damage
> can occur. If you are generating ozone, you're
> probably also generating NOx, which is also pretty bad
> stuff to breath. While starting up our first ozone
> unit around ten years ago, the units kept shutting
> down based on the ambient ozone monitors. It turns out
> we had to raise the threshold to the OSHA 8 hour
> limit, as the Atlanta area occasionally got above the
> 12 hour limit just due to automobile emmissions in the
> summer.
>
> Adam
>
> --- Tesla list <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> > Original poster: "H.S. J." <hsheltonj@xxxxxxxxx>
> >
> > Well Guys,
> > We never truly answered the question that was going
> > around for a
> > while 2 weeks ago or so.  Do home made caps
> > represent a health
> > risk?  What ARE the risks involved with O3 (ozone)?
> > And, how great
> > are they in affecting someone?  Because, some people
> > are not able to
> > spend upwards of usually $100 for a good MMC bank,
> > the bottle caps or
> > whatever seem to be the best option for many
> > economically.
> >
> > Quote:
> > "The ozone production of this type of capacitor is
> > terrible and could
> > present a serious health hazard."
> >
> > -Dr. Resonance
> >
> >
> >
> > I mean, how terrible is this health risk and what is
> > the large health
> > hazard?  I mean, ozone is no different than living
> > in a place such as
> > Mexico City or Los Angeles where the smog gets so
> > bad that people
> > have to go to the hospital because of respritory
> > issues caused by the
> > environment.
> >
> >
> >
> > -Shelton
> >
> >
> > Now that's room service!
> >
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>
>
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