Capacitors
Capacitors are energy storage devices which have the ability to store an electrical charge across its plates. Thus capacitors store energy as a result of their ability to store charge and an ideal capacitor would not loose its stored energy. The simplest construction of a capacitor is by using two parallel…
But just like resistive circuits, a capacitive voltage divider network is not affected by changes in the supply frequency even though they use capacitors, which are reactive elements, as each capacitor in the series chain is affected equally by changes in supply frequency. But before we can look at a capacitive…
When capacitors are connected across a direct current DC supply voltage, their plates charge-up until the voltage value across the capacitor is equal to that of the externally applied voltage. The capacitor will hold this charge indefinitely, acting like a temporary storage device as long as the applied voltage is…
Unlike the resistor, which dissipates energy in the form of heat, the ideal capacitor does not loose its energy. We have also seen that the simplest form of a capacitor is two parallel conducting metal plates which are separated by an insulating material, such as air, mica, paper, ceramic, etc,…
For series connected capacitors, the charging current ( iC ) flowing through the capacitors is THE SAME for all capacitors as it only has one path to follow. Then, Capacitors in Series all have the same current flowing through them as iT = i1 = i2 = i3 etc. Therefore each capacitor will store the same amount of electrical charge, Q on its plates regardless of…
The voltage ( Vc ) connected across all the capacitors that are connected in parallel is THE SAME. Then, Capacitors in Parallel have a “common voltage” supply across them giving: VC1 = VC2 = VC3 = VAB = 12V In the following circuit the capacitors, C1, C2 and C3 are all connected together in a parallel branch between points A and B as shown. When capacitors are connected together in parallel…
Capacitors consist of two parallel conductive plates (usually a metal) which are prevented from touching each other (separated) by an insulating material called the “dielectric”. When a voltage is applied to these plates an electrical current flows charging up one plate with a positive charge with respect to the supply…
However, when the value of the capacitance is of a decimal value problems arise with the marking of the “Decimal Point” as it could easily not be noticed resulting in a misreading of the actual capacitance value. Instead letters such as p (pico) or n (nano) are used in place of the decimal point…
There are a bewildering array of capacitor characteristics and specifications associated with the humble capacitor and reading the information printed onto the body of a capacitor can sometimes be difficult to understand especially when colours or numeric codes are used. Each family or type of capacitor uses its own unique…
The types of capacitors available range from very small delicate trimming capacitors using in oscillator or radio circuits, up to large power metal-can type capacitors used in high voltage power correction and smoothing circuits. The comparisons between the the different types of capacitor is generally made with regards to the dielectric used…
The capacitor is a component which has the ability or “capacity” to store energy in the form of an electrical charge producing a potential difference (Static Voltage) across its plates, much like a small rechargeable battery. There are many different kinds of capacitors available from very small capacitor beads used…