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Registered Member #1523
Joined: Sat Jun 07 2008, 02:05PM
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Posts: 97
so, I know that when a single capacitor discharges, the INITIAL resulting amperage is the capacitor's voltage devided by the resistence of the circuit.
I am curious, so does that mean, that no matter how many capacitors (of the same voltage, are connected in series or in parrellel, then the initial amperage will still be teh same? since neither the voltage or resistence changes?
Registered Member #27
Joined: Fri Feb 03 2006, 02:20AM
Location: Hyperborea
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Your model is too simple to give an accurate answer unless your load resistance is quite a lot higher than the internal resistance of the capacitor. For the series circuit the load resistance must be a lot higher than the sum of the ESR of all capacitors.
To get an accurate result in every case you need to model all resistances and inductances of the circuit. Have a look at a more complete model of a capacitor:
So the answer depends on the capacitors and the load.
The largest power delivered to your load is when the ESR equals the the load resistance, assuming that the pulse is so long that the inductance makes no difference.
Registered Member #15
Joined: Thu Feb 02 2006, 01:11PM
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Posts: 3068
EvilTesla-RG wrote ...
so, I know that when a single capacitor discharges, the INITIAL resulting amperage is the capacitor's voltage devided by the resistence of the circuit.
I am curious, so does that mean, that no matter how many capacitors (of the same voltage, are connected in series or in parrellel, then the initial amperage will still be teh same? since neither the voltage or resistence changes?
Capacitors are energy storage. Load current *is* the voltage / impedance.
However, the impedance isn't just the load. Impedance = ESR of the capacitors + Load
So Load current = Vo / (ESR + LoadImpedance)
Neglecting ESR, the initial current will be the same whether you use 1 or 1,000,000 capacitors in parallel. The difference is that the voltage will droop far slower with more capacitors in parallel than a single capacitor.
For really low impedance loads, then ESR *does* become important and can limit maximum current.
For example, if I have a 10V cap with a 1 ohm ESR and a 1 ohm load, then my peak current is 5A. However, if I take (10) of those capacitors in parallel, i now have an equivalent 10V capacitance with an ESR of 0.1 ohm. And my peak current is now about 9A.
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simple capacitor question
