Re: More Capacitor Ideas (Oil Dielectric)

To: tesla-at-poodle.pupman-dot-com
Subject: Re: More Capacitor Ideas (Oil Dielectric)
From: Tesla List <tesla-at-stic-dot-net>
Date: Sun, 15 Jun 1997 09:19:28 -0500
Approved: tesla-at-stic-dot-net
Subject:  Re: More Capacitor Ideas
  Date:  Sun, 15 Jun 1997 04:32:52 +0500
  From:  "Alfred A. Skrocki" <alfred.skrocki-at-cybernetworking-dot-com>
    To:   Tesla List <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>


On Fri, 13 Jun 1997 20:35:55 +1000 Peter Electric
<elekessy-at-macquarie.matra-dot-com.au> wrote;

> While we're on the subject of great minds, (and extreme modesty) I have
> had an idea also. I'm sure someone has thought of this before, but what
> about using just Xformer oil as your dielectric. Some of the better oils
> seem to have fairly good Dielectric constant, not to mention reasonable
> breakdown voltage, so what if you used something like plastic flyscreen
> mesh between the plates. This would allow oil to flow freely and might
> even allow the capacitor to "self heal" in the event of an arc over.
> 
> Let me know if anyone has tried this technique.

I may be  a bit out of date on my info but I've always been lead to 
understand that plain mineral oil (Squib) had better dialectric 
strength and dialectric constant than any of the non PCB transformer 
oils. I do remember someone using refrigerator compressor oil and 
commenting that it doubled their capacitance, now that sounds 
promising! I did build a capacitor once out of aluminum cookie sheets 
with ceramic spacers and suberging the whole thing in a tank of 
mineral oil. It worked but is was much bigger and much much heavier 
than an equal value capacitor made out of polyethylene in an oil 
bath! I would be cautious about the screening since it might have 
lower dialectric strength than the oil and if so will be the cause of 
breakdown. If is has a higher power factor than the oil it will 
contribute to heating up the whole deal. I'm not knocking the idea,
it's actualy a very good idea, it is just in need of appropriate 
materials.

                               Sincerely

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                           Alfred A. Skrocki
                   alfred.skrocki-at-cybernetworking-dot-com
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