Re: DArN CAPACITORS!

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

Original poster: "Terry Fritz" <twftesla-at-uswest-dot-net>

Hi Drew,

Your having a "bad capacitor day" aren't you =:O

At 08:03 PM 1/31/2001 -0400, you wrote:
>OK people,
>I'm sick of getting dry, crusty, stinging, bleeding hands from salt water 
>caps. Absolutely sick of it. As far as i'm concerned, salt water caps made 
>with beer bottles or most other thick glass bottles suck. I read about how 
>lossy they are and what a mess they are when you pour motor oil over them to 
>suppress corona discharge. From my experiences with tesla coil caps, two 
>liter pop bottles filled with brine and covered with tin foil are the best. 
>However, they are not as durable as glass caps are as the plastic bottle 
>will break down easily if the voltage output of the transformer is too much. 
>On one of these caps, i drew a 3-4 inch snapping white spark off of the 
>electrode on the neck of the bottle. I did this with a 10000v 23ma oil 
>burner igniter. Glass bottle caps barely made a 1 inch spark.

I picked up an animated gif off the web that may show your situation at :-)

http://hot-streamer-dot-com/TeslaCoils/Misc/Ya.gif

>I need your help!
>I want a bigger transformer, and i need more info on POTENTIAL TRANSFORMERS. 
>ie: How big? How are they different from distribution XFMRs (Pole Pigs)

Others will have to fill you in on PT details...

>If I were wanting to build a MMC, where would I get the caps at a good 
>price. I am only a high school student hoping to enter my tesla coil in a 
>science fair this march. 

You can search around for good deal.  I will "humbly" mention tht I have a
thousand++ just sitting here :-))  

http://hot-streamer-dot-com/temp/lottacaps.jpg

0.056uF at 1600 volts each.  I quantity buy them and sell them at my cost
(I have gone through 3000 this month :-))  They are $1.80 each which
includes shipping (even to Canada which is sort of like "just another big
state" to the post office) and resistors.  If you know your transformer
well, a nice EMMC may be fairly cheap.  Since it only has to last though
March, perhaps an EEMMC :-)

MMC details at:
http://hot-streamer-dot-com/TeslaCoils/MMCInfo/mmcinfo.htm

You can write me at:
terrellf-at-qwest-dot-net if interested.

Cheers,

	Terry

>It has to be done this march. Help , I need your 
>advice.
>                                                    Up here in Canada,
>                                                     Drew Murray