- Joined
- Jul 4, 2009
- Messages
- 16,520
- Helped
- 5,157
- Reputation
- 10,347
- Reaction score
- 5,211
- Trophy points
- 1,393
- Location
- Aberdyfi, West Wales, UK
- Activity points
- 139,690
Thank you for the diagrams Bluelasers, it's difficult for me to draw them when I'm mobile most of the time.
As expalined, a capacitor HOLDS charge so except for the very short time when it is taking charge in, it draws very little current but it does have the ability to "fill-in" the dips in the supply voltage when something else pulls the voltage down. The reason for using an electrolytic capacitor and ceramic one in parallel is not to increase the value but to decrease their impedance. An electrolytic capacitor is good at providing a lot of storage in a small package but they are poor at releasing it very quickly (very = in a few nS) and ceramic capacitors are very good at releasing energy quickly but are physically big for their value. If you wire them across each other it gives the benefit of both types. As the interference on your supply lines is probably a mix of short and long signals, using both should always help.
So they are not 'shorts', they are more like little rechargeable batteries but placed where the demand for power is needed most.
Brian.
As expalined, a capacitor HOLDS charge so except for the very short time when it is taking charge in, it draws very little current but it does have the ability to "fill-in" the dips in the supply voltage when something else pulls the voltage down. The reason for using an electrolytic capacitor and ceramic one in parallel is not to increase the value but to decrease their impedance. An electrolytic capacitor is good at providing a lot of storage in a small package but they are poor at releasing it very quickly (very = in a few nS) and ceramic capacitors are very good at releasing energy quickly but are physically big for their value. If you wire them across each other it gives the benefit of both types. As the interference on your supply lines is probably a mix of short and long signals, using both should always help.
So they are not 'shorts', they are more like little rechargeable batteries but placed where the demand for power is needed most.
Brian.