Talk:Capacitor

Sections to be done:

Uses of capacitors Types and grades of capacitors Limitations of real-world capacitors (ESR, voltage ratings, etc) Home-made capacitors vs MMCs --Simon 20:44, 5 May 2005 (EDT)

JIM: the mechanical analogue of a capacitor is traditionally given as the spring, as this ties in nicely with the set of other mechanical analogies. If you have another analogy, please just add it. Please don't just delete other work: use this discussion page.--Simon 18:57, 6 Jun 2005 (EDT)

To me it makes much more sense to think of it as a balloon, as you're blowing it up with electricity, and letting it blow it back out. Rather than a spring which you just compress and release.

When you charge a capacitor, you put charge into it. When you blow up a balloon you put air into it, and the analogue of charge is displacement, not air, in this case. The spring analogy is commonly used, as I said, as a set of mechanical analogies. An LC oscillator is a flywheel (inductor) connected to a spring (capacitor) - through a gear system if you like but that isn't strictly necessary. Have you seen the mechanical analogue section of the Basic Electrical Theory page? It says the mechanical analogy is an analogy of equations.--Simon 02:36, 8 Jun 2005 (EDT)

The list of capacitor types was meant to a set of headings for me to fill in when I (or someone else) had time.--Simon 02:42, 8 Jun 2005 (EDT)

I think it would be easier to do an outline type arrangement with information under each type. each separate heading makes it look extremely busy, they should be combined into one section at the least.--JIM 05:21, 8 Jun 2005 (EDT)

I'm not sure what you mean. You have subheadings with information under each type.--Simon 19:38, 10 Jun 2005 (EDT)

Layout and equivalent circuit
Would it be OK if I changed the Layout of this article rather extensively? (I would like it to resemble somewhat the layout of the Inductor article) Also, the language could be a bit more formal. For example one could say "The equivalence capacitance of capacitors in parallel is the sum of all capacitances" instead of "When capacitors are put in parallel, the capacitances simply add up". Maybe there should be a policy regarding structure and formality of articles?

One other thing is that the equivalent circuit for a capacitor in this article (which I have also noticed in the Inductor article) needs more clarification. Even though many people here might understand what it's all about some of us have never seen this representation before and need to know what all the different variables mean. And is it relevant? Does this really effect circuitry (or tesla coils) to a significant extent?

I don't want to step on anyone's toes here so I just wanted to know if these changes would be welcome. This way my effort won't be wasted.
 * --Andri 01:44, 17 June 2008 (EDT)