Ground Capacitors
Self Defenestrate, Mon Aug 07 2006, 03:21AMI remeber some talk somewhere of placing a capacitor in series with your coils ground connection to increase ground strike power, has anyone tried it? Any thoughts?
Re: Ground Capacitors
dan, Mon Aug 07 2006, 03:29AM
At high frequencies a capacitor would act like a piece of wire. (e.g. Short) so I don't think it would do anything. When I was too lazy to pound a copper stake into the ground I would just use a few square feet of aluminum foil to capacitivly couple the secondary to earth. I noticed no difference in preformence using a copper stake in the ground or a few ft^2 of aluminum foil.
dan, Mon Aug 07 2006, 03:29AM
At high frequencies a capacitor would act like a piece of wire. (e.g. Short) so I don't think it would do anything. When I was too lazy to pound a copper stake into the ground I would just use a few square feet of aluminum foil to capacitivly couple the secondary to earth. I noticed no difference in preformence using a copper stake in the ground or a few ft^2 of aluminum foil.
Re: Ground Capacitors
..., Mon Aug 07 2006, 04:02AM
I think that if you hook the + side of the cap up to a high voltage source you might have better luck
..., Mon Aug 07 2006, 04:02AM
I think that if you hook the + side of the cap up to a high voltage source you might have better luck
Re: Ground Capacitors
Steve Ward, Mon Aug 07 2006, 04:29AM
The idea is that the capacitor will allow ground currents to pass to earth as usual, but you can put a large DC component on the capacitor, and have it discharge through the TC secondary, through the ground sparks. You obviously do NOT want to contact the output of the tesla coil in this case.
For starters you could try something around a few nF at 40-50kV. Perhaps charge it up with a TV flyback. You might want to isolate the flyback from the capacitor with some HV resistors. Maybe i'll try this myself with my DRSSTC.
Im pretty sure EVR did this with his small coil, and i think even posted a schematic of how he did it.
Steve Ward, Mon Aug 07 2006, 04:29AM
The idea is that the capacitor will allow ground currents to pass to earth as usual, but you can put a large DC component on the capacitor, and have it discharge through the TC secondary, through the ground sparks. You obviously do NOT want to contact the output of the tesla coil in this case.
For starters you could try something around a few nF at 40-50kV. Perhaps charge it up with a TV flyback. You might want to isolate the flyback from the capacitor with some HV resistors. Maybe i'll try this myself with my DRSSTC.
Im pretty sure EVR did this with his small coil, and i think even posted a schematic of how he did it.
Re: Ground Capacitors
dan, Mon Aug 07 2006, 06:43AM
Ah I see what you mean now. Maybe I should give it a try. I have a few 570pF 40kv door knob capacitors. But I don't think the few extra J would do much though. The arc would probably be a little bit brighter and louder. However my TC as is already drowns out the spark gap and I'm not sure if I really want anything louder. One thing I'm concerned about is that the inductance of the tesla coil would lengthen discharge times; Thus making is not as spectacular as it could be if I used the same caps in a marx generator.
I would like to see someone use a large pulse cap (say 10-30uf at 50kv. which would probably blow a small coil apart) in such and arrangement. Sort of like a bug zapper but on a more human scale
"Tesla Security Systems"
dan, Mon Aug 07 2006, 06:43AM
Ah I see what you mean now. Maybe I should give it a try. I have a few 570pF 40kv door knob capacitors. But I don't think the few extra J would do much though. The arc would probably be a little bit brighter and louder. However my TC as is already drowns out the spark gap and I'm not sure if I really want anything louder. One thing I'm concerned about is that the inductance of the tesla coil would lengthen discharge times; Thus making is not as spectacular as it could be if I used the same caps in a marx generator.
I would like to see someone use a large pulse cap (say 10-30uf at 50kv. which would probably blow a small coil apart) in such and arrangement. Sort of like a bug zapper but on a more human scale
"Tesla Security Systems"Re: Ground Capacitors
Finn Hammer, Mon Aug 07 2006, 06:54AM
Bill Wysock did this the other way round.
The pupmamarchives contains a description of the damage the EMP did to the surroundings.
Cheers, Finn hammer
Finn Hammer, Mon Aug 07 2006, 06:54AM
Bill Wysock did this the other way round.
The pupmamarchives contains a description of the damage the EMP did to the surroundings.
Cheers, Finn hammer
Re: Ground Capacitors
Terry Fritz, Mon Aug 07 2006, 07:57AM
The description if Bill's experiment is here:
Cheers,
Terry
Terry Fritz, Mon Aug 07 2006, 07:57AM
The description if Bill's experiment is here:
Cheers,
Terry
Print this page