Tesla coil parts - where to salvage?

[Kasterborus]

Hi,

I'm trying to put together a Tesla coil following plans for a vacuum
tube based design.

I need to find the following parts, and wondered if these could be
salvaged from anywhere...

1 x 0.004 mfd 1000 volt polypropylene capacitor
1 x 0.003 mfd 3 kv mica capacitor
3 x 0.01 mfd 10 kv mica capacitor
1 x VARIAC 18 amp variac with built in meter

Any help in locating them would be greatly appreciated.

Dave

 

[[email protected]]

Hi,

I'm trying to put together a Tesla coil following plans for a vacuum
tube based design.

I need to find the following parts, and wondered if these could be
salvaged from anywhere...

1 x 0.004 mfd 1000 volt polypropylene capacitor
1 x 0.003 mfd 3 kv mica capacitor
3 x 0.01 mfd 10 kv mica capacitor
1 x VARIAC 18 amp variac with built in meter

Any help in locating them would be greatly appreciated.

Dave

Dave if you are in the Bay Area or other large city try the local
electronic surplus stores. In the Bay Area there are three really good
ones one off Central in SunnyVale I believe called Halted or Haltek
(also on line) Alltronics on Yanker Rd in San Jose and one just off
the freeway near the old Merriots Great America. There are a number of
other samller ones around to. In Portland area there is one in
Downtown and one in Hillsboro or Aloha Weird (something) lots of old
strange parts. Phoenix there was one out next to the airport don't
know if is still there. Boston area there is one out on the loop don't
remeber what its called but with a little digging you may be able to
find it-- was right off the loop. Online there are a zillion surplus
houses also is you don't want to go digging your self. Hope this helps

Cliff

 

[BobG]

Try Skycraft Parts and Surplus corner I-4 and Fairbanks, Winter Park
FL, skycraftsurplus.com

 

[default]

Hi,

I'm trying to put together a Tesla coil following plans for a vacuum
tube based design.

I need to find the following parts, and wondered if these could be
salvaged from anywhere...

1 x 0.004 mfd 1000 volt polypropylene capacitor
1 x 0.003 mfd 3 kv mica capacitor
3 x 0.01 mfd 10 kv mica capacitor
1 x VARIAC 18 amp variac with built in meter

Any help in locating them would be greatly appreciated.

Dave

Good luck. Mica caps, even used transmitting caps command a fortune.

How did you arrive at a need for three .01 ufd 10KV caps???? That
seems like a lot. My biggest coils were on the order of .01 uf @ 30
KV - for 10 KV excitation.

You can make your own caps a lot cheaper. Glass plate caps with 3/32"
picture frame glass and aluminum foil or flashing, leden jars, or HD
polyethylene bags and aluminum foil, poly propylene sheet and
aluminum. ETC

Many TC'rs use something they call MMC's (multi-mini-cap). Large
quantities of low dissipation factor caps in series and parallel.
They will outperform many other types and do so at modest cost. It
would be safe to say that they are the hands down winner for cost, and
performance.

Variac - for current control? You can also just wind a large inductor
and have a movable iron core and put it in series with the HV
transformer. When you slide the core out the current to the HV
transformer rises.

http://www.pupman.com/ is the best source of all things related to
Tesla coils. There's plenty of information you can search for and
they have a great news letter / forum where you can get specific
answers.
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