= Capacitor =

A Capacitor is a component that stores energy in an electric field. It does
this by having two plates seperated by a dielectric. This is called
capactitance and is measured in farads (F).

Capacitors are resistant to changes in voltage, and therefore can be used to
smooth out sudden changes. They also cause AC signals voltage and current to
get out of sync.

== Types ==

Different types of Caps are useful for different applications, simply based on
the materials present in the cap.

* Ceramics
  * Good for RF filtering at high frequencies
* Plastic Film
  * circuits at audio and lower frequencies
* Silvered-Mica
  * Highly stable, low loss, used in RF circuits
* Electolytic and tantalum
  * Power supply filter circuits
* Air and vacuum dieletric
  * transmitters and RF circuits

== Series and Parallel ==

When Capacitors are in series, the total capacitance comes to be the reciprocal
of reciprocals. This means that the total capacitance for Capacitors C1 C2 and
C2 would be

Total = 1/(1/C1 + 1/C2 + 1/C3)

When capacitors are in parallel the values of capacitors are added together.
This means the total capacitance of a set of parallel capacitors is euqal to
the sum of their capaciatance

== Reactance ==

See [[Impedance#Capacitors]]