The pioneering years in the history of capacitors was a time when capacitors were used primarily for gaining an early understanding of electricity, predating the discovery even of the electron. It was ...

Vintage equipment relies on many components to run properly, Chuck Gloman writes. Let’s focus today on what capacitors do in ...

Single-phase motors, adjustable-speed drives (ASDs), and power factor (PF) correction applications often depend on capacitors to operate properly. This article explains how to test these critical ...

Regular readers of Hackaday are intimately knowledgeable about old electronics, and whether it’s about that old oscilloscope sitting in the pile of other oscilloscopes, or the very rare vintage ...

The capacitor auto-discharge module presented in this article is simply a failsafe module that automatically discharges the buffer/filter capacitor in a power supply circuit when its input supply is ...

Out of all of the fundamental passive electronic components, capacitors are arguably the most abundantly used. In fact, it is hard to find a circuit board that does not have a capacitor on it and a ...

It’s a widely known problem with roots in urban legend: Devices with motherboards failing in the early 2000s with a sudden pop, a gruesome spill, or sometimes a burst of flames. And it was allegedly ...

First, let's define a capacitor: It is an electromechanical device capable of storing electrical energy (electrons). It differs from a battery, as a battery produces electrical energy as a by-product ...

Capacitors are classified according to their dielectric’s type. Electrolytic capacitors are popular in power electronic circuits, due to their high volumetric efficiency and excellent price ...

One of the most common parts to fail on a single-phase HVAC system is a run capacitor, so much so that we sometimes refer to junior techs as “capacitor changers.” While capacitors may be easy to ...