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capacitors in series

Hello,

This is something very basic, I have been using it for a while, When you two capacitors in series, you end up having the equivalent of one capacitor that is lower in Farad then the lowest capacitor. My question is ,WHY . One capacitor charges, well they all have to charge at the same time I suppose and also discharge at the same time. Would it have an accumulative effect ?

thanks

Ken

Reply to
Ken O
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Hopefully this is easy and non-scientific to follow: Consider the simplest capacitor - two metal plates with an air gap between them. The wider the gap, the smaller the capacitance. When you put a second one in series you are effectively increasing the air gap, hence the capacitance is reduced.

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Jim Backus OS/2 user since 1994
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Reply to
Jim Backus

------------- Here's a way to think about it. Caps in series are the same as one cap with thicker dieletric, and thicker is lower capacitance. Capacitance goes like Capacitance=epsilon*Area/Distance. Distance being thickness.

-Steve

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-Steve Walz  rstevew@armory.com   ftp://ftp.armory.com/pub/user/rstevew
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Reply to
R. Steve Walz

Thanks for your help, very usefull.

Ken

Reply to
Ken O

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