A Beginner's Guide to the Capacitor

An ideal capacitor would have an extremely high dielectric resistance and zero plate
resistance. This would result in the charge across the plates remaining constant indefinitely
once the source voltage was removed. However, real capacitors have some leakage current
which pass through the dielectric between the two plates. The amount of leakage current that
a capacitor has depends upon the leakage resistance of the dielectric medium being used.
Also an ideal capacitor does not lose any of the energy supplied by the source voltage as it is
stored in the form of an electric field between the two plates but in real capacitors power is
lost due to this leakage current and the resistance value of the plates.

The symbolic representation of a capacitor in an electrical circuit is that of two parallel lines
separated by a small gap with a positive plus (+) sign above the top plate if the capacitor is of
a polarised type. Like resistors, capacitors can be connected together in several ways either
in a series, parallel or a combination of the two. In a parallel combination the potential
difference across each capacitor is the same and equal to the source voltage, V and each
capacitor stores a charge. The total stored charge, (QT) will be equal to the sum of all the
individual charges. As charge Q = CV (from above) and the voltage across a parallel
combination is the same the total capacitance will be the sum of the individual capacitances
so C total = C1 + C2 + C3 + C4 etc. By connecting together capacitors in parallel a much
high capacitance value can be obtained from small individual capacitors.

For a series combination of capacitors, the charging current flowing through the capacitors is
the same so the magnitude of the charge is the same on all the plates. Knowing that V = Q/C
dividing through by Q will give the total capacitance as the reciprocal of all the individual
capacitances added together so 1/CT = 1/C1 + 1/C2 + 1/C + 1/C4 etc. By connecting
together capacitors in series the equivalent capacitance is less than that of the smallest value
capacitor.

I hope that this short beginners guide to the capacitor tutorial has been helpful to anyone who
is new to the world of electronics either as a hobbyist or as a student trying to learn
electronics.

Have you ever come across power problem where once you switch on the power supply and
the fuse blow? You have checked all the components in the power (primary) and secondary
section and all the components seems to be ok! Where is the fault? A fuse blown are usually
caused by a shorted bridge rectifier, defective posistor, power transistor or FET, shorted
primary winding of switch mode power transformer, shorted secondary diode and etc. But in
this article I'm gone to show you another secret of electronic troubleshooting tips.

I got frustrated as to where is the cause of power problem. Every time when i switch on the
power supply the fuse blow immediately (the fuse became dark color and this indicate that
there is a major short circuit in the power supply). I have checked all the components in the
power supply and can't find the culprit! electrolytic capacitor