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Re: Design of my first coil



At 12:06 PM 2/24/99 -0700, you wrote:
>Original Poster: "Samuel Rosset" <samr-at-chez-dot-com> 
>
>
>I'm about to build my first coil, but before starting, I would like to tell
>you how I plan to build it, and I would really like to have some feedback
>from you, experienced coilers.
>  
>1) I found a NST 12KV 30ma that I'm planing to use. According to the
>formula I found on a TC site, the matching capacitance would be 0.0066 uF
>(micro farad). I planned to build either a SW cap or a alu-glass cap. But
>this morning, my physics teacher showed me an "object" (It's most likely a
>cap, but who knows...) here is what is written on it: Spargue, 500MMFD
>20KV. 20KV??? It will work fine for my coil, but what does 500 MMFD mean???
>0.5 uF (If it's that, it is way too big)?? 0.0005 uF???(better; I would
>need 10 or 12 of these) Can I use these???


Hello Samuel

The "object" is a high voltage capacitor. The '500MMFD' means that it has a
capacitance of 500 micro-micro-Farads or 500 pF (0.5nF). On its own, this
capacitor is too small to drive a typical Tesla Coil. The '20KV' is the
maximum DC voltage that can be applied across the capacitor.

You would be better off making a polyethylene or salt-water capacitor
(unless you physics teacher has 40 or so more spragues).

Safe coiling,

Gavin Hubbard