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Squidwrench Electronics Workshop: Session 6 Whiteboards

Coverage of capacitors as charge-storage devices, rather than filters:

Session 6 - Whiteboard 1 - overview
Session 6 – Whiteboard 1 – overview

We avoided all the calculus and derivations, taking the exponential waveform as a given for RC circuits:

Session 6 - Whiteboard 1 - exponential detail
Session 6 – Whiteboard 1 – exponential detail

Discussions of dielectrics, plate spacing / area, and suchlike:

Session 6 - Whiteboard 1 - dielectric permittivity
Session 6 – Whiteboard 1 – dielectric permittivity

Some handwaving discussion of construction, electrolytic capacitor innards, and The Plague:

Session 6 - Whiteboard 1 - cap construction
Session 6 – Whiteboard 1 – cap construction

A 1 F cap charged through a 1.8 kΩ resistor during most of the session to show what an 1800 s time constant looked like. Nope, it never quite got to the 3.5 V from the power supply, even when we all decided it was time to shut down!

Comments

2 responses to “Squidwrench Electronics Workshop: Session 6 Whiteboards”

  1. madbodger Avatar
    madbodger

    Generally 1F capacitors have a fair amount of leakage, so I’m guessing it was getting close to equilibrium at that point.

    1. Ed Avatar
      Ed

      Sounds like a good homework project: “Here, measure the leakage of this hulking cap.”