Hey guys I decided to look through the lectures posted on this site to expand my knowledge and understanding of electronics during my time off from school and so far ive come across a few questions pertaining to capacitors
In one of the safety lectures it was saying that to reset a capacitor (discharge it) you would connect the terminals together using a wire. I understand theoretically that by doing this we cause the potential difference between the terminals to be zero and therefore cause the electric field to dissipate and therefore release its stored energy but where would this charge actually go? wouldnt this be like putting a wire between the terminals of a battery assuming the capacitor was charged which is daaangerous?
Second question has todo with a capacitors application with power source voltage spikes. I remmeber reading somewhere that capacitors are used to keep voltage values constant is this done by using a capacitor with a large time constant so that it respnds to the voltage change very slowly and therefore keeps the voltage at that point steady even if a spike occurs? Just want to make sure thats along the right lines
In one of the safety lectures it was saying that to reset a capacitor (discharge it) you would connect the terminals together using a wire. I understand theoretically that by doing this we cause the potential difference between the terminals to be zero and therefore cause the electric field to dissipate and therefore release its stored energy but where would this charge actually go? wouldnt this be like putting a wire between the terminals of a battery assuming the capacitor was charged which is daaangerous?
Second question has todo with a capacitors application with power source voltage spikes. I remmeber reading somewhere that capacitors are used to keep voltage values constant is this done by using a capacitor with a large time constant so that it respnds to the voltage change very slowly and therefore keeps the voltage at that point steady even if a spike occurs? Just want to make sure thats along the right lines