42 lines
1.2 KiB
Plaintext
42 lines
1.2 KiB
Plaintext
= Capacitor =
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A Capacitor is a component that stores energy in an electric field. It does
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this by having two plates seperated by a dielectric. This is called
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capactitance and is measured in farads (F).
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Capacitors are resistant to changes in voltage, and therefore can be used to
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smooth out sudden changes. They also cause AC signals voltage and current to
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get out of sync.
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== Types ==
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Different types of Caps are useful for different applications, simply based on
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the materials present in the cap.
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* Ceramics
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* Good for RF filtering at high frequencies
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* Plastic Film
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* circuits at audio and lower frequencies
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* Silvered-Mica
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* Highly stable, low loss, used in RF circuits
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* Electolytic and tantalum
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* Power supply filter circuits
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* Air and vacuum dieletric
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* transmitters and RF circuits
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== Series and Parallel ==
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When Capacitors are in series, the total capacitance comes to be the reciprocal
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of reciprocals. This means that the total capacitance for Capacitors C1 C2 and
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C2 would be
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Total = 1/(1/C1 + 1/C2 + 1/C3)
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When capacitors are in parallel the values of capacitors are added together.
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This means the total capacitance of a set of parallel capacitors is euqal to
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the sum of their capaciatance
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== Reactance ==
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See [[Impedance#Capacitors]]
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