What is the most common use for capacitors?
4932111#1
The physical form and construction of practical capacitors vary widely and many capacitor types are in common use. Most capacitors contain at least two electrical conductors often in the form of metallic plates or surfaces separated by a dielectric medium. A conductor may be a foil, thin film, sintered bead of metal, or an electrolyte. The nonconducting dielectric acts to increase the capacitor's charge capacity. Materials commonly used as dielectrics include glass, ceramic, plastic film, paper, mica, and oxide layers. Capacitors are widely used as parts of electrical circuits in many common electrical devices. Unlike a resistor, an ideal capacitor does not dissipate energy.
Capacitor
22781118#6
Capacitors (often referred to as "caps") have several uses in electric guitars, the most common of which is in the tone control, where it combines with the potentiometer to form a low-pass filter, shorting all frequencies above the adjustable cut-off frequency to ground. Another common use is a small capacitor in parallel with the volume control, to prevent the loss of higher frequencies as the volume pot is turned down. This capacitor is commonly known as "treble bleed cap" and is sometimes accompanied by a series or parallel resistor to limit the amount of treble being retained and match it to the pot's taper.
Guitar wiring
21152701#1
A capacitor can store electric energy when it is connected to its charging circuit. And when it is disconnected from its charging circuit, it can dissipate that stored energy, so it can be used like a temporary battery. Capacitors are commonly used in electronic devices to maintain power supply while batteries are being changed. (This prevents loss of information in volatile memory.)
Applications of capacitors
4932111#10
Porcelain was used in the first ceramic capacitors. In the early years of Marconi's wireless transmitting apparatus porcelain capacitors were used for high voltage and high frequency application in the transmitters. On the receiver side smaller mica capacitors were used for resonant circuits. Mica dielectric capacitors were invented in 1909 by William Dubilier. Prior to World War II, mica was the most common dielectric for capacitors in the United States.
Capacitor
2908558#9
The most common kinds of capacitors are:In addition to the above shown capacitor types, which derived their name from historical development, there are many individual capacitors that have been named based on their application. They include:Often, more than one capacitor family is employed for these applications, e.g. interference suppression can use ceramic capacitors or film capacitors.
Capacitor types
2908558#1
Capacitors, together with resistors, and inductors, belong to the group of "passive components" used in electronic equipment. Although, in absolute figures, the most common capacitors are integrated capacitors (e.g. in DRAMs or flash memory structures), this article is concentrated on the various styles of capacitors as discrete components.
Capacitor types
35034187#28
Film capacitors for use in electronic equipment are packaged in the common and usual industry styles: axial, radial, and SMD. Traditional axial type packages are less used today, but are still specified for point-to-point wiring and some traditional through-hole printed circuit boards. The most common form factor is the radial type (single ended), with both terminals on one side of the capacitor body. To facilitate automated insertion, radial plastic film capacitors are commonly constructed with terminal spacings at standardized distances, starting with 2.5 mm pitch and increasing in 2.5 mm steps. Radial capacitors are available potted in plastic cases, or dipped in an epoxy resin to protect the capacitor body against environmental influences. Although the transient heat of reflow soldering induces high stress in the plastic film materials, film capacitors able to withstand such temperatures are available in Surface Mounted Device“ (SMD) packages.
Film capacitor
35034187#1
The dielectric films, depending on the desired dielectric strength, are drawn in a special process to an extremely thin thickness, and are then provided with electrodes. The electrodes of film capacitors may be metallized aluminum or zinc applied directly to the surface of the plastic film, or a separate metallic foil. Two of these conductive layers are wound into a cylinder shaped winding, usually flattened to reduce mounting space requirements on a printed circuit board, or layered as multiple single layers stacked together, to form a capacitor body. Film capacitors, together with ceramic capacitors and electrolytic capacitors, are the most common capacitor types for use in electronic equipment, and are used in many AC and DC microelectronics and electronics circuits.
Film capacitor
9221221#3
Even in the early years of Marconi's wireless transmitting apparatus, porcelain capacitors were used for high voltage and high frequency application in the transmitters. On the receiver side, the smaller mica capacitors were used for resonant circuits. Mica dielectric capacitors were invented in 1909 by William Dubilier. Prior to World War II, mica was the most common dielectric for capacitors in the United States.
Ceramic capacitor
6282950#0
A vacuum variable capacitor is a variable capacitor which uses a high vacuum as the dielectric instead of air or other insulating material. This allows for a higher voltage rating than an air dielectric using a smaller total volume. However, many dielectrics have higher breakdown field strengths than vacuum: 60-170 MV/m for teflon, 470-670 MV/m for fused silica and 2000 MV/m for diamond, compared with 20-40 MV/m for vacuum. There are several different designs in vacuum variables. The most common form is inter-meshed concentric cylinders, which are contained within a glass or ceramic vacuum envelope, similar to an electron tube. A metal bellows is used to maintain a vacuum seal while allowing positional control for the moving parts of the capacitor.
Vacuum variable capacitor
35034187#36
As of 2012, only five plastic materials continued to be widely used in the capacitor industry as films for capacitors: PET, PEN, PP, PPS and PTFE. Other plastic materials are no longer in common use, either because they are no longer manufactured, or they have been replaced with better materials. Even the long-time manufactured polystyrene (PS) and polycarbonate (PC) film capacitors have been largely replaced by the previously-mentioned film types, though at least one PC capacitor manufacturer retains the ability to make its own films from raw polycarbonate feedstock. The less-common plastic films are described briefly here, since they are still encountered in older designs, and are still available from some suppliers.
Film capacitor