Hey Gary...you got me thinking and I realized something... the 10% tolerance rating has to do with the mFs of the stated value of the cap ( say .15mF +- 10%) The voltage rating is marked as a general usage point maximum. Yes we can go higher but at a reduced life of the cap ( or death of cap). Just for giggles, I had pushed some low volt electrolytics beyond their marked voltage ( a bunch of them pulled off of scrap boards from TV's copiers power supplies etc). Being that most of them were in the 35 to 120 v range, a 240V DC supply was more than enough to do the job :)
The lower volt caps ( 35 or so) went at +40% above rating ( approx 50V) , the 120V caps went at +75% of rating.( approx 190V) Never did get a full doubled voltage on any of the caps. If anyone decides to try this do it outside between the oil and the smoke and the explosion, inside the home isnt a good idea :) oh yea... the 35V 1600mF caps make for a nice explosion too.
Scot D Lau, Gary wrote:
I would agree with Scott's (Bunnykiller) reply, in that the power used by bleeder resistors isn't terribly significant. Did you actually compare the spark length with the same cap and everything else, with and without the resistors? I also didn't follow your point regarding the 10% tolerance and ability to handle voltage spikes. Do you mean able to handle a higher voltage in general, and is somehow correlated with the tolerance? Tank caps see 60 Hz activity and tank frequency activity, both to the same peak voltage, but I'm not aware of "spikes" outside of these realms. SNIPPERZZ>>>>
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