Re: CP out of Tesla Business, again!

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

Original poster: "Barton B. Anderson by way of Terry Fritz <teslalist-at-qwest-dot-net>" <tesla123-at-pacbell-dot-net>

When a kid decides he wants to build a Tesla coil, and thinks he knows all 
there is to know. He asks daddy for lots of money for a cap. BANG. Oh, it 
must be the cap! STOMP STOMP STOMP What the .... is wrong with you .... 
manufacturers. Give me my ...... ... money back!!!   The kid ends his brief 
coiling days and decides he wants to race cars... Hey daddy, I need lots of 
money .......

CSI also quit selling caps to coilers. The problem was not the manufacturer 
but the buyer who "spec'd" the capacitor for CSI to build. Had the 
"manufacturer" been given good information and then specified the cap to 
use for the service and it failed, then you can blame the manufacturer. But 
when the cap is specified by the buyer who hasn't got a clue, the buyer is 
"rightly" responsible.

I would predict in most of these cap manufacturer vs. Tesla cap buyer 
dilemma's, it's been the buyer who has too much money and not enough 
knowledge. I would also predict that in cases where a cap is properly rated 
for it's intended use, and used within it's ratings, and the cap fails 
(regardless of who spec'd it), the manufacturers are far more inclined to 
replace the cap since this is "rightly" in the manufacturers court.

Well said that all high voltage systems are subject to failure. They are. 
Manufacturers know this. But when people start throwing tissy fits because 
they lack the common sense to use a little courtesy in their discussions, 
the manufacturers get a bad taste in their mouths for coilers. End of 
story. End of caps. All it takes is one bad apple to spoil the bunch.

However, I've come to the conclusion that MMC's have saved the day thanks 
to Terry and Reinhard - way back when. Let's hope the same dilemma's don't 
occur with our MMC manufacturers.

Take care,
Bart

Tesla list wrote:

>Original poster: "Mccauley, Daniel H by way of Terry Fritz 
><teslalist-at-qwest-dot-net>" <daniel.h.mccauley-at-lmco-dot-com>
>
>We were among that group, and CP capacitors power ALL current HVFX rental
>stock.  Recently CP seem to have become a little more open about their TC
>range and have started to sell them to new customers.  Then, yet again,
>someone mistreated their product, blew it up and now they are out of TC
>business for ever.  I really can't express my frustration at this.  The
>designers at CP are real professionals, tell them what you need and they'll
>build you a cap that can take it day in, day out without even getting warm.
>I know their test procedures and voltages, and there is no way a cap could
>get through then fail in service.  The bottom line is that if you blow up a
>cap from CP, or NWL, or PCI, or Maxwell, then you didn't spec. the cap
>properly.  Ed Wingate and many others will bear me out on this.
>
> >>>>>>>>>>>> I STRONGLY disagree with that statement.  As a radar
>transmitter engineer, I have
>had to work with thousands of different capacitors from NWL, Maxwell, CP,
>Plastics, etc...
>We have had hundreds of caps (which were stringently derated according to
>military specifications) fail.
>Some failed poorly, some failed spectacularly.  High voltage is a dangerous
>game and complex game.
>Things WILL blow up out of the blue.  Even the best designed tesla systems
>are subject to failure.
>
> >>>>>>>>>>> Also, your comment regarding test procedures and voltage means
>absolutely nothing unless
>those items are tested to the EXACT duty and conditions they will be
>subjected to in the field.  This
>especially goes for telsa coil use and radar transmitters as well.  We have
>had loads of components fail
>including $400,000 HV Power supplies which go through the most stringent
>testing as possible only to fail
>one-by-one once they are installed and ran in a high voltage system.
>
> >>>>>>>>So please assume that just because a component blew up that they
>MISTREATED the product.
>
>Dan
>
>