Tag: Capacitor Quirks

As with inductors, the ideal capacitor is a purely reactive device, containing absolutely zero resistive (power dissipative) effects. In the real world, of course, nothing is so perfect. However, capacitors have the virtue of generally being purer reactive components than inductors. It is a lot easier to design and construct a capacitor with low internal…

Using the same value components in our series example circuit, we will connect them in parallel and see what happens: Parallel R-C circuit. Resistor and Capacitor in Parallel Because the power source has the same frequency as the series example circuit, and the resistor and capacitor both have the same values of resistance and capacitance,…

In the last section, we learned what would happen in simple resistor-only and capacitor-only AC circuits. Now we will combine the two components together in series form and investigate the effects. Series capacitor circuit: voltage lags current by 0° to 90°. Impedance Calculation The resistor will offer 5 Ω of resistance to AC current regardless…

Capacitors Vs. Resistors Capacitors do not behave the same as resistors. Whereas resistors allow a flow of electrons through them directly proportional to the voltage drop, capacitors oppose changes in voltage by drawing or supplying current as they charge or discharge to the new voltage level. The flow of electrons “through” a capacitor is directly…

Pure resistive AC circuit: voltage and current are in phase. If we were to plot the current and voltage for a very simple AC circuit consisting of a source and a resistor, (figure above) it would look something like this: (figure below) Voltage and current “in phase” for resistive circuit. Because the resistor allows an…