[Test-Equipment] Question about series/parallel capacitors

[Barry]

> Yeah, that's an application where the bleeders would mollux things up.
> And if the dead cap is part of a reference network, I'd think you'd
> want tolerances way better than 5%/
> 73 de Mike W5VSI

These are 0.5%, not 5%.  There's always the possibility that they're closer than that.  The original reference cap is rated at 0.1% so this would certainly take a chance at not being accurate enough.  Unfortunately, I don't have another bridge (or other testing equipment) where I could take a lesser value cap and add small adjusting caps to "tune" it up to 0.5uF +/- 0.1%.

I'm curious.  The discussion about uneven voltages on series capacitors due to leakage has me wondering how much of a problem this presents.  At maximum, the generator will put out 600V bias so theoretically there should be 200V across each capacitor.  Given that they're 250V caps, would there be such an imbalance that one cap would see more than 250V?

BTW, I found a 1409-X for a reasonable price and hope to have it on the way soon.  This will most likely become the standard cap in my 1617A; however, I'm still interested in this discussion as the 1409-X is only rated at 500V and I'd really hate to take a chance on ruining it with 600V.  Alternately, I may use the 1409-X temporarily to get a set of capacitors "trimmed" to 0.5uF.

Thanks,
Barry - N4BUQ