"Jim Stewart" wrote in message
...
Martin H. Eastburn wrote:

Discharging caps that way can ruin the cap. Just turn off the supply or
apply a resistor load. The internal plates violently move - ripping
themselves up.

Given that they were made by Maxwell and sold to
Fermilab, they are probably spec'ed for pulse
discharge. That said, I'd not want to be on the
same city block when iggy crowbars them.

Putting a hard metalec short across them will no
doubt blow half the terminal away, create a deafening
blast and generate a nice EMP pulse. There's no
way I'd do it.



I worked in a medical laser research group. We had 2u odd caps @ 10kv+ as
part of a home brew laser supply. Before working on it we'd double check the
caps were disharged in case the discharge resistors had failed.

A couple of PVC pipes 2m long with a 12" length of heavy neon sign cable
linking them, a couple of M4 screws were stuck through the ends.

When the caps were charged it was like a gun going off - very sharp bang, it
usually bought people out of offices all down the hallway. You never stood
behind whoever had the rods in case you got a reacting elbow in the face.

r.