Burning capacitor, or Why Polyester is Bad For High Currents

I recall someone asked to see video of a polyester capacitor in the throes of death. Well here you go (plus some narration).

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Somewhere around 50kHz. The (smaller) capacitors in question are Cornell-Dubilier DME's, 0.1uF 400VDC. As you can see, they are insufficient for induction heating service. ;-)

The load is a single 1/2 x 1" strip of titanium, you can see it glowing up to about orange heat (1600°F or so).

Oh, and this is also proof of concept for the new induction heater circuit- I'm using the regulated power supply, oscillator, high and low side drivers and a UC3842 flyback converter for the high-side supply (which is regulated by an opto, not very long term stable since it depends on CTR, I should fix that some day).

Speaking of which:

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Rise and fall times are on the order of 0.5us, with the sextet of STW11NB80's. Gate waveforms are +10V ON, -5V OFF.

Tim

-- Deep Fryer: a very philosophical monk. Website:

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Tim Williams
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