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The size of my capacitors?
Hi everyone. My name is Adrian Bourassa and I've only known about Tesla
Coils for about six months. I'm doing a science project involving a
small coil that I saw in a fairly old issue of "Electronics
Experimenter's Handbook." The experiment is to duplicate the author's
model and to try and improve on it.
My question is as follows:
The article said to use three parallel connected 500 pF doorknob
capacitors leading to ground, parallel to the primary of the coil. Maybe
there is a term for this capacitor placement that someone could fill
me in on. It is the final capacitor that the electricity encounters
before it goes through the primary coil of my assembly. I believe that
it is used to generate the high frequency that is characteristic of
Tesla coils. Anyway, back a couple of months ago I had never heard of a
doorknob capacitor (maybe you haven't either) and neither did anyone that
I spoke to about it. So I used the only thing that I thought would work.
The only 500 pF capacitors that were rated high enough voltage that I
could find turned out to be very small. They're a little bit fat for
disc capacitors but I believe that is what they are. They're only about
a 1/2inch in diameter. They seem to work fine. My question is am I
correct in assuming that if it's the right capacitance and it's rated
high enough voltage that it will work? The reason I'm doubtful is that
the author gave me directions to make a capacitor if I couldn't find one
and it's supposed to be around a 9" picture frame. Has the technology
improved since 1990 enough to allow this drastic a change in capacitor
size or would I find a drastic improvement in arcing distance if I used
the correct physical sized capacitors?
Sorry about the lack of correct terminology. I'm just new to this and I
would appreciate any help I can get. Thanks