Once upon a time I was a real mad scientist. I was into non-conventional propulsion with the idea of somehow interacting with the quantum vacuum fluctuations, the zero point energy field. I was into ...

Every now and then you need to make your own capacitor. That includes choosing a dielectric for it, the insulating material that goes between the plates. One dielectric material that I use a lot is ...

When choosing a capacitor for any application, there are a few key characteristics that must be understood in order to analyze its suitability for the circuit. In a simple capacitor equivalent circuit ...

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 ...

In 2008, Kendall Castor-Perry began an extended investigation into the effect that bypass capacitor selection has on analog circuit performance. Five years on, we’re reposting this classic series, ...

For many of us, the term "robot" still evokes an image of R2D2 or a terminator-style collection of metal parts. But there's no reason to limit our construction materials to hard parts. A number of ...

My wife thinks I’m crazy. She has been watching me discharging piles of coin cells over the last year, collecting millions of data points about their behavior. “Honey, exactly why are you spending all ...

An onion-like cluster of carbon sheets—think nested Russian dolls crossed with a buckyball—is the key to a new capacitor that can hold up to very high discharge rates.

In residential and light commercial HVACR, we work with run capacitors every day, and you may have noticed that they fail quite often. Because of this, many companies are beginning to integrate ...