about capacitor

Mar 03, 2005 3 Replies

Hello All



Can anyone enligthen me about how a the capcitor charging and discharging in a configuration of a battery(and ac power supply) and capacitor in series? I am wondering if the the charge flow can goes through the capacitor plates? How actually the flow of electron and current to the capacitor at two side of the battery terminal(ac signal)? Kindly help me to understand this. If there is any online document that explains this well, kindly show me the link



Thank you



rgds and thanks Jason


The idea behind capacitors is really simple. At their simplest, they are just two electrically conductive plates separated by a thin insulating barrier. Electrons repel each other, and so if you force electrons onto one of the plates, it'll repel the electrons on the other plate, making them move away and out the other terminal. The way you change the number of electrons on the plate is to change the voltage between the plates.

This makes it seem like the electrons are moving through the plate, but they really aren't, they are just acting like they are, when the voltage changes. Once the voltage stops changing, an arbitrary DC voltage can be across the plates, and no current will flow.

The equation that describes this is

current = capacitance * rate of change of voltage over time.

Regards, Robert Monsen "Your Highness, I have no need of this hypothesis." - Pierre Laplace (1749-1827), to Napoleon, on why his works on celestial mechanics make no mention of God.

Thanks a lot Robert Your answers clear my doubts :)

rgds and thanks Jason

For the last word on capacitors see Bill Beaty's page at

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