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Flexible MMC design

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LAN_403

Mads Barnkob

Tue Apr 29 2008, 08:13PM

Registered Member #1403 Joined: Tue Mar 18 2008, 06:05PM
Location: Denmark, Odense C
Posts: 1968

Before building my first MMC I wanted it to be as flexible as possible, so I could fit it for various projects etc, I searched the forum and google, and found to my surprise. nothing. :(

So i fired up Hammer(map editor for Half-Life), far from a real cad program, but suitable for the job and I know how to handle it :D

I wanted my MMC to be scaleable in strings and parallel, so without much experience this is based on 5 capacitors strings and a infinite number of string in seriel (almost).
Its all thought up to be build using banana jacks, plexiglass and strips. The female/male bananajacks at the end of strings I would make myself out of brass.

Since I have never build a MMC I have little practical knowledge of its behavior, will this design face loss problems due to many jack points? proper spacing among components will ofcause be made. Are there other significant dangers to consider?

Here are my concept "art", dont know if its done before, but atleast I didnt find it in my search.

Ultra7

Tue Apr 29 2008, 08:26PM

Registered Member #1157 Joined: Thu Dec 06 2007, 12:11PM
Location: Houston, TX
Posts: 307

The Geek Group made one of those.

Their strings were 10 each, tho.

Tonic

Tue Apr 29 2008, 08:56PM

Registered Member #528 Joined: Fri Feb 16 2007, 10:32PM
Location: Warsaw, Poland
Posts: 166

My god.. what a unbelievable bigass MMC. The biggest I've ever seen!

Mads Barnkob

Wed Apr 30 2008, 01:33PM

Registered Member #1403 Joined: Tue Mar 18 2008, 06:05PM
Location: Denmark, Odense C
Posts: 1968

The geek groups mmc is still all bolted together with wires, my biggest concern is really if using bananajacks would be a problem due to possible loss etc.

I wanted a MMC I can change without a need for tools, maybe its not properly explained.

Each string will have a female bananajack on their top in each end, and a male under them, so they can be stacked or stringed with the middlepiece. The only restrictions in my design is the chosen length of the single strings.

Please give any ideas if you think it can be made in a better way, about same price and ease of configuration without tools.

quicksilver

Wed Apr 30 2008, 03:55PM

Registered Member #1408 Joined: Fri Mar 21 2008, 03:49PM
Location: Oracle, AZ
Posts: 679

Price being an issue....I've thought about the same thing. I thought of some "breadboard" concept. but not using a commercial breadboard but one that could be made using common household items. Imagine if you hab a breadboard that was one foot square but had layers....: like multi-dimensional Chess.

The breadboard concept would allow for plugging in and pulling out what you had available. Perhaps there are companies that actually MAKE breadboards that have 2nd's that they would give away....?

Electroholic

Wed Apr 30 2008, 08:26PM

Registered Member #191 Joined: Fri Feb 17 2006, 02:01AM
Location: Esbjerg Denmark
Posts: 720

Something like this?

Mads Barnkob

Fri May 02 2008, 11:04AM

Registered Member #1403 Joined: Tue Mar 18 2008, 06:05PM
Location: Denmark, Odense C
Posts: 1968

Electroholic wrote ...

Something like this?

that is still pretty far from what I have drawn/descriped :)

Ultra7

Fri May 02 2008, 11:57AM

Registered Member #1157 Joined: Thu Dec 06 2007, 12:11PM
Location: Houston, TX
Posts: 307

I say that if you are going to spend the money on an MMC, you would probably be better off using nice heavy gauge wire to buss them together with good solid ring terminals and bolts with wing nuts. Banana jacks, while being a quick, easy method to connect low voltage/low current circuits to power supplies or together, would probably melt with the high voltages and currents involved in the tank circuit.

I've used the

modular connectors on my MMC because of the high current rating, with thick battery cable. I've haven't melted a cable yet. This gives me a quick swap method of obtaining different values of capacitance rather than the longer time it would take on undoing the wing nut. However, once I have the optimum value of a particular coil, I go back to ring and bolt. You can tell the difference with quick connectors as opposed to a nice solid, bolted down connection in the performance of your coil.

But hey, I'm all about experimentation.
Build it with banana jacks, and let us know how it works out for you.

Steve Conner

Fri May 02 2008, 12:19PM

Registered Member #30 Joined: Fri Feb 03 2006, 10:52AM
Location: Glasgow, Scotland
Posts: 6706

When I built my OLTC2, I used an MMC held together with banana jacks just like the one proposed here, except all the capacitors were in parallel. I made sure to get good quality jacks made of solid brass with multiple finger contact springs.

I measured the resistance of the jacks I used, and they were only a few milliohms. It worked fine with peak primary currents over 5000A.

(What do you think the resistance of the lead wires on the capacitors is?)

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