Capacitor related vocabulary

How do you describe a capacitor?

Each capacitor should be accompanied by a name -- C1, C2, etc.. -- and a value. The value should indicate the capacitance of the capacitor; how many farads it has. Speaking of farads... Not all capacitors are created equal. Each capacitor is built to have a specific amount of capacitance.

What does the capacitance of a capacitor tell you?

The capacitance of a capacitor tells you how much charge it can store, more capacitance means more capacity to store charge. The standard unit of capacitance is called the farad, which is abbreviated F. It turns out that a farad is a lot of capacitance, even 0.001F (1 milifarad -- 1mF) is a big capacitor.

What are the different types of capacitors?

Capacitors used for energy storage differ in their structure, mode of operation, capacitance, and life cycle. They are classified into Electrostatic, Electrolytic, Electrical Double Layer, and Pseudocapacitor types.

What makes a capacitor special?

What makes capacitors special is their ability to store energy; they're like a fully charged electric battery. Caps, as we usually refer to them, have all sorts of critical applications in circuits. Common applications include local energy storage, voltage spike suppression, and complex signal filtering.

What is a capacitor & how does it work?

Capacitors have a unique response to signals of varying frequencies. They can block out low-frequency or DC signal-components while allowing higher frequencies to pass right through. They're like a bouncer at a very exclusive club for high frequencies only. Filtering signals can be useful in all sorts of signal processing applications.