Giant Capacitors. Where do I find them?

You can get very large capacitors at any power company but do NOT go to the office and asked to buy some. Find out where the maintenance department is and go there. They will probably have several used capacitor in the storage room they are not using. Tell they you want to buy 1 or 2 or 3. The storage area at maintenance here in our town has lots of caps they have no use for and never will but they won't trash them either, they might give you several free. They might sell you several very cheap. I get a lot of free stuff that way. I buy high voltage oil from them they have NEW oil 55 gallon drums I get it in 5 gallon empty gas can $2 a gallon.

gary350 said:

I buy high voltage oil from them they have it is 55 gallon drums I get it in 5 gallon empty gas can $2 a gallon.

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I have no doubt they are willing to sell you that oil for only $2 per gallon. They are likely PAYING $2 to $5 to dispose of it if you didn't come along and buy it. Polychlorinated biphenyls, a mixture of chemical isomers known to environmentalists as PCB his highly carcinogenic. Good luck.

Another option is look for electronic repair companies that deal with machine tool servo drives & see if they have any scrap gear.

The drives and especially their PSUs usually have some seriously large, high voltage capacitors in them..

eg. you can just see the ends of the row of caps with busbars on their terminals at the lower left of this picture:
https://www.pesquality.com/img/Yaskawa-Repair-3-245.JPG?t=1484595384

Big drives typically run with a DC bus of around 500 - 700V

gophert said:

I have no doubt they are willing to sell you that oil for only $2 per gallon. They are likely PAYING $2 to $5 to dispose of it if you didn't come along and buy it. Polychlorinated biphenyls, a mixture of chemical isomers known to environmentalists as PCB his highly carcinogenic. Good luck.

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I am buying brand new oil right out of the 55 gallon barrel, not used oil. They burn used oil in a burn container behind the building. PCB oil was outlawed 15 years ago.

gary350 said:

I am buying brand new oil right out of the 55 gallon barrel, not used oil. They burn used oil in a burn container behind the building. I was told PCB oil was outlawed 15 years ago.

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PCBs were outlawed 15 years ago - both the manufacture of PCBs and the use of PCBs in new products. All of the devices already in service are allowed to live out their useful lifetime. Also, high temperature oils do not burn well, and definitely an EPA violation unless they have a big scrubber. I doubt they were burning anything except firewood. They probably laughed their butts off when you believed their story.

Or he was in North Dakota buying it.