I’ve tried to figure this one out, and honestly, there are a lot of good articles and videos out there trying to simplify and explain how certain electronic components work but they *still* get too technical and jargon-y. Like, what’s the actual for capacitors?
In: 4
ELI5: It’s a really fast battery. It doesn’t store nearly as much energy as a battery, but can be charged and discharged almost instantly.
ELI7:
If a wire is a water hose, a very accurate analogy is a container with one hose at each end, and a rubber membrane in the middle.
It’ll block a flow, but it will let *some* through for a short while, as the membrane expands in one direction like a balloon. Once fully expanded, flow will stop. It is charged.
If you were to turn off the water tap at this point, the capacitor would keep the water pressure high. It would use the expanded membrane’s energy to return water if needed, like a balloon.
If you were to pull and push water back and forth through the hose, you’d find that the capacitor isn’t much of an obstacle at all, and water would flow freely if the capacitor is big enough.
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