Are capacitors essential in driving a motor?

[Warhawk87]

I hear a lot about "minimizing noise with a capacitor" when people run motors, and i think that by noise they mean electrical noise, not actual noise... with that in mind, do you really need the capacitor?

[madsci1016]

Really need?  No.

Silly not to just put them is? Yes.

Noise down your power line can mess with your other circuitry.

[blackbeard]

Really need?  No.

Silly not to just put them is? Yes.

Noise down your power line can mess with your other circuitry.

this! if you have a camera or any sort of transmitter then you will get a ton of static!

[Warhawk87]

So then what exactly is the procedure in putting them in? Because I know NOTHING about capacitors, and theres a lot to know...  Im trying to learn about them but for the time being a quick solution would be nice

[madsci1016]

The quick and dirty lesson on capacitors.

They are used for two things, energy storage or filtering.

Energy storage is simple. They are charged and discharged similar to a battery. Hook a charged cap to a resistor and it will discharge a current through the resistor.

Filtering is a little different. look at your circuit and imagine the cap is a 'short' for high frequency noise. so if you wanted to get rid of noise, you would 'short' ground to the positive terminals. Or for motors, 'short' across the two motor terminals. (put the cap across the motor terminals).

make sense?

[Warhawk87]

Thanks a lot!

I did some research and asked around and i think i understand now... Thanks for all your help!