Right name, wrong company. Through the miracle of modern corporate buyouts, asset transfers, and whatnot, the Maxwell capacitor guys and their products are now at General Atomics Energy Products in San Diego.
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The fellows there are very friendly and kindly sent me a FAX of the detailed datasheet for my Maxwell #33504 100uF 10kV capacitors, a few years ago, even though they're no longer manufactured. They apparently have file cabinets filled with design info and datasheets, and brains filled with experience and corporate history.
General Atomics Energy Products General Atomics Electronic Systems, Inc. 4949 Greencraig Lane, San Diego, CA 92123 Phone: 858-522-8400 Fax: 858-522-8401
They also have a pile of useful application notes as online pdfs,
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One of these notes,
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has a list of HV pulsed capacitors they made dating back to 1980.
One issue that hasn't been brought up is operating degradation and pulsed-capacitor lifetime. These fellows do wear out, and the GAE, formerly-Maxwell, folks provide detailed information so users can estimate the remaining life in a HV pulse capacitor, and replace it before there's trouble, e.g., Capacitor Engineering Bulletin 96-004, "The Effect of Reversal on Capacitor Life"
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What happens in a government lab when a capacitor is removed from service? I've seen large caps sitting over in a corner, considered not good enough to place back into routine service, but not bad enough to throw away either. "Could I have one of those?" I asked, when on an open-house tour. "Probably," was the answer. So, when we buy these big fellows on eBay, it's likely they aren't new and unused, with a full life ahead of them. Another reason for caution.
Thanks Win and DoN. I appreciate you clearing up the corporate issue. I will print out these PDFs tonight and will check out that procedure (gotta leave for work now).
On 3 Apr 2006 05:19:36 GMT, with neither quill nor qualm, snipped-for-privacy@d-and-d.com (DoN. Nichols) quickly quoth:
Hey, I've driven by that place on more than one occasion and believe I even sent an app there when I graduated from Coleman College's Computer Electronics Technology course in '88. I first happened past their building on the way to a computer store in Sandy Eggo.
Hover over their Hivolt Capacitors link and get a load of those insulators. One derives a healthy respect for the voltages at which they work just by looking at those beefy ceramic mothers!
I believe that the average 'Murrican either no longer understands the word "lab", or equates "laboratory" with "evil scientists" a la Frankenstein.
P.S: That's pronounced "fronk un steen". (So says Gene)
Hell, I'm surprised that the people running these spark-gap transmitters haven't been visited by their local cellular, commercial, broadcast and Ham operators - en masse, and in the classic "Torches and Pitchforks" meeting initiation method. ;-)
That thing probably splatters the radio spectrum enough without deliberately attaching a broadcasting antenna to it. The only saving grace would be it's a very short pulse - not long enough to get a normal DF lock.
I'd build and operate the whole coin shrinker rig in a Faraday Cage to catch most of the RF, with the cage inside an all steel shipping container ala "Mythbusters" for 'ballistic containment failures'.
I never said it wasn't enough. This is what experimenting is for.
Probably. Can crushing is actually pretty boring though. I crushed more cans just putting them in the coil form than from actually using it. Cans are so weak, it's just not interesting.
I might try again with full cans of pop. That would be messy, but more pleasing to watch, and a bit harder to pull off.
Well, it's those who start with a LED-flasher, then move on to salvaging caps from disposable cameras. The next step is the microwave x-former. That's when they start celebrating Tesla's birthday. Now comes the neon supply and finally they do coin shrinking and can crushing. Only when they have ended up with the Darwin Award we do not read any more posts. BTW I did coin shrinking with 7yrs. by putting them on the train rail and can crushing I still do with my foot.
Hey hey. I think you meant "at 7 yrs. of age", but there is a lot of sense to your methods. On the other hand, we can easily go a quarter mile by walking or on a bicycle, but some people find it entertaining to do it with nitro-fueled funny cars in a few seconds.
It's arguably stupid, but ah heck, those few of us should enjoy wasting energy for fun while it's still possible and legal.
We have IMHO the right to do foolish things, Rich is smoking his head off, there are the Audiophools, others watch Big Brother on TV. Just be prepared to get answers from engineers in this NG.
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