Society of Robots - Robot Forum
Electronics => Electronics => Topic started by: slo on April 08, 2009, 05:50:42 PM
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While cruising the site I came by the electronics 101 tutorial. While reading about capacitors I came up with a strange analogy/mnemonic to explain how capacitors work.
Caps are like the big window inside a hospital that divides the viewing room from the newborn babies. The excited parents are like current flowing down the hallways trying to get to their babies. That desire to get to the baby is electromotive force, voltage. The parents route to the babies is long and convoluted (hallways/wires) and they have to stop and do stuff along the way(paperwork/load). The window/cap doesn't offer a shortcut through to the babies but it lets you see em. Some parents may pass by the window, others stop for a while and move on. If you have a bunch of parents/current arrive at the same time, because lots of babies were born recently(voltage spike) the cap/viewing room provides a place for the overflow crowding the halls. But only to a point. The wider the window(higher voltage rating) the more babies can be viewed at the same time. The deeper the room, (capacitance) the more parents you can absorb from the hallway comfortably. When the room is empty(discharged) current flows in fast and almost all of the parents stop by the window leaving almost none in the hallway. But as the room fills up (charged) a higher percentage pass right by. Flow in the hallways resumes the room stays full. If you blocked the hallway, the room would stay full unless there was another way out. The rate of people leaving (discharge) depends on how wide the exit is (resistance). A window(cap) wont allow you to walk through it Directly (DC wont pass) but since you can get to the other side by an Alternate path (AC will pass) it appears to the baby that you did pass through but were delayed(phase angle)
Corny I know but maybe it will help someone get it.
Dustin Maki
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Wow I think they made understanding capacitance a lot harder that way.
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Hey thats a pretty good analogy...its easy to remember :) Thanks. (btw, my name is Dustin too! ;D)