Introduction to Capacitors - Basic Circuits #17 | Electronics Tutorials

Capacitors are one of the most fundamental components of a circuit and, when working in DC steady-state circuits, they're very straightforward! But then you start changing things on them and things start to get... interesting. Join us in this tutorial where we go over what's happening to a capacitor on a physics level, how it works in DC circuits and how it works in AC circuits. This high-level overview will give you a good foundation of understanding before jumping into the very useful complexities of the different capacitor applications available.
Parts of the video:
0:00 Introduction
0:36 Physical and physics basis of capacitors
0:44 How capacitors work in DC circuits
1:36 How capacitors work in AC circuits
4:27 Capacitors and leading current
7:28 Analogy of how capacitors work
9:38 Practical Circuit Examples
10:44 AC Coupling Circuit
14:37 Bypassing or Shunting Circuit
17:32 Summary
18:04 Have you seen everything that CircuitBread.com offers?
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[@ifell3]

I've learnt more than I knew before and can see now why a DC circuit has a capacitor after the power. But man there's a lot of info in there.

[@castlecodersltd]

This was really instructional, I learnt a few new things from this. Thank you ☺

[@kapsabet3]

Thank you I finally understand capacitor coupling . Very good explanation .

[@CircuitBread]

Awesome, glad it helped!

[@JorgeCuervolini-ci3me]

Newbie working with LT Spice. How is it you are seeing AC and DC? I am able to create either or in spice schematic. When I run transient analysis, I will only see DC current unless I make the power source AC (Sine) and then only see the AC signal. I am basically trying to run through examples with LT Spice.

[@abdul-q-khan]

And how does the diodes and capacitors voltage multiplier work?

[@CircuitBread]

This is just the basic introduction in to capacitors! Charge pumps are a bit more complicated... We'll hopefully touch on this once we do the Circuits 2 series.

[@alaksandrshpak5500]

1/(jwc) or 1/jwc ???

[@CircuitBread]

1/(jwc) - everything is under the denominator!

[@fishntools]

Hummm, How does the capacitors dielectric survive lethal solar gamma radiation?

[@CircuitBread]

Huh, interesting question, I've never really delved into that too much. There are different types of dielectrics and I imagine they would respond differently. That being said, I also imagine that the amount of gamma radiation that would destroy a capacitor would be more than enough to kill people very, very quickly.

[@fishntools]

@@CircuitBread Solar gamma requires 3.4 feet of lead for shielding in a "space" environment (as per a Physicist and Sr. Radiological Control monitors calculations). My curiosity evolves around electronic devices themselves being able to withstand "space" travel if such a thing is even possible? Forgive my apprehension but "figures don't lie, but liars figure"! I find this to be a tormenting possibility...it never happened because it's impossible to have happen. Ask around, flip over the stones and you too may become tormented?

[@widowmakerdesign]

I appreciate your channel, but none of this is “introductory“ or “basic“ unless you already have a high level understanding of capacitors/circuits??! Complex formulas, and a whole lot of concepts I don’t understand.
My understanding of capacitors before watching this video… They “smooth” electricity.
My understanding AFTER this video… Absolutely no idea.

[@maryckbuilds]

Hey, I don't know if you're better off now but I'd say this video really described how a capacitor actually behaves. I do get you though with the formula and fancy terms. At the end of the day yeah, they do just "smooth" out the current/voltage delivered depending on how it's connected but this video just tells the ideas behind how they end up doing that.
I assume you wanted to know how they are used? Based on what I understand, in one configuration, if the voltage spikes, capacitors can help protect your load(like an LED) by getting rid of the spikes and keeping the voltage smooth(the AC decoupling/being in parallel with your power supply 10:17/14:40) and in the other configuration (AC Coupling/passthrough or DC blocking 9:44/10:45) if its a DC voltage OR the frequency is too low, there will be no voltage output, that is why the blue line was flattish/approx. 0 at 10 kHz - 100 kHz but at 1MHz up you can start to really see the AC Voltage passing through.
The current-leading the voltage business is when I'd say things get complex. Anyways, happy learning!!