Re: Salt Water Caps (fwd)

To: tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
Subject: Re: Salt Water Caps (fwd)
From: Tesla List <mod1-at-pupman-dot-com>
Date: Tue, 25 Feb 1997 22:24:43 -0700 (MST)
Approved: mod1-at-poodle.pupman-dot-com


---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 25 Feb 1997 00:30:20 -0600
From: Mike Hammer <mhammer-at-misslink-dot-net>
To: Tesla List <mod1-at-pupman-dot-com>
Subject: Re: Salt Water Caps (fwd)

At 09:38 PM 2/24/97 -0700, you wrote:
>
>
>---------- Forwarded message ----------
>Date: Fri, 24 Jan 1997 20:03:19 -0600
>From: Nathan Lamphere <randyl-at-ronan-dot-net>
>To: tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
>Subject: Salt Water Caps
>
>Hello again--
>
>After being very busy with work and even more happily getting engaged:)
>I am ready to go back constructing my first Tesla coil.
>
>I am now at the point of making my capacitors. I thought that it might
>be wise to make salt water caps because of ease/ and price. I downloaded
>the Tesla Archive File by David Lima on how to make these capacitors. 
>According to the plans, however, he said his bank of 6 salt water caps
>had a capacitance of 4.3 nF.  I have calculated that I need at least a
>.0063 uF capacitor.
>
>So if I understand things correctly, using his plans I would need 1465
>of these banks just to get the right capacitance, disregarding the
>voltage.  OBVIOUSLY something is very wrong here.
>
>It seems several of you have built salt water caps.  Can you tell me:
>
>1) Are his 4.3 nF (per bank of 6 caps) correct?  Or is it a misprint?
>2) If his numbers are correct, what can I do to make a different type of
>salt water cap?  I could sooner afford to buy a commercial cap as to
>drink that much soda for 8700 bottles.
>3) Am I missing the boat somewhere?
>
>Here is another start for a thread to add to the Tesla Guide.
>
>Thanks
>Nathan


Nathan,
I made some SW caps using 12 oz beer bottles and I measured them
at about 740 pf per bottle. It was suprisingly quite consistant.
8 bottles in parallel would give you close to .006 mfd.

I had best results from brown glass beer bottles. The clear glass
ones like Miller uses are too thin and don't stand up well.

By the way 4.3 nf is 4300pf which is also .0043 mfd.
Using his value of 4.3 nf for 6 bottles gives 716 pf per bottle
which goes well with my results.

Mike Hammer
mhammer-at-misslink-dot-net