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Re: NEW COILER QUESTIONS
>Original Poster: Travis Tabbal <bigboss-at-xmission-dot-com>
>>> 1. I have a cap rated at 1 uf -at- 25kv. cap says its DC but there is no
>> polarity marking on the cap. can I use it ???
>
>
The DC rating means that it is intended for use as a power supply filter cap
for a HV supply. It also implies that it can't handle much AC power through
it. Filter caps are typically kind of lossy (which only applies to the AC
current, of which there is little in a power supply). If you run it in an
AC circuit, like a high rep rate pulser or TC, the losses will start to make
the cap get hot inside, reducing it's life dramatically.
I imagine that this cap is physically quite large and heavy?
It would work nicely for a rectifier smoothing filter with a suitable
inductor in a resonant charging scheme; this is a fairly sophisticated
design though.
It would also work nicely to make almost-exploding wires (although the life
will be shortened in impulse duty) (Filter caps usually have pretty high
series L, so you can't get real fast pulses out).. 300 Joules is a fair
amount of stored energy and when dumped quickly, interesting things happen.
(300 Joules is like dropping a 70 pound weight from 3 feet.. think how much
damage that does...)(touch it when it's charged and you're probably going to
permanently regret it, if you survive to regret).