Electronics are becoming ever more prevalent in my uni course (I’m doing sound engineering). Knowing how your own equipment works and stuff is integral but what is a capacitor. I failed physics in school almost. What does it do. Help.
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It’s like a small battery that runs out of juice faster than a standard battery.
They’re used to smooth out variations in voltage in case the voltage increases or decreases, or provides power for short periods of time in case the power goes out.
More technically, the simple capacitor has two plates with a dielectric material between them. Electrons gather on one plate while the other plate has none. The electrons want to jump to the other plate creating a voltage potential, effectively “charging” the capacitor as more electrons gather on the charged plate until it can’t hold any more. When the charged plate is full, electrons begin jumping across the dielectric material generating current. When the source voltage drops, the electrons continue to jump to the uncharged plate matching the capacitor’s rated voltage and decreasing voltage over time as all the electrons jump across. This provides the circuit with a short burst of voltage and current. Capacitors are widely used as voltage filters to prevent over/under-voltage from the source that can potentially damage components further down the circuit or cause unwanted circuit behavior.
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