capacitors

SMD Capacitance Hack

SMD Capacitance Hack

Akiba of Freaklabs, a Tokyo-based open-source electronics kitmaker, needed to add some 0805 surface-mount capacitors to an existing PCB, so he stacked them up! super ghetto bulk capacitance hack. my RF amp is more power hungry than i expected… See the related links below for more of Akiba’s awesome work!

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Component of the Month: The Capacitor

Component of the Month: The Capacitor

I’m super excited for this month’s component: the capacitor! It’s an electronic component that stores a small amount of energy in an electrical field. Caps make up a very diverse family of components! As usual, we start off our coverage with an excerpt from Charles Platt’s stellar Encyclopedia of Electronic Components, Vol. 1.

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2000V washer launcher

Bob Davis, whom some of you may remember for his high-voltage can crusher, is back at it with this 2KV, 1600A, 1500 μF 10-capacitor discharge bank that can be used to crush cans and, most amusingly IMHO, launch washers high into the air with a sound that really has to be heard to be appreciated. Bob’s video might benefit from a bit of editing; clicking the embedded player above should take you right to the money shot around 4:35. There’s also a good can-crushing right around 5:50.

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Unraveling capacitors

Unraveling capacitors

From the NYCResistor crew comes this action-packed crash-course in capacitors – complete with a cliffhanger ending! Here’s hoping the saga continues with a miniature rescue mission via shrink ray (they must have one in their somewhere, right?) If after that, cap functionality still seems a bit fuzzy, check out this rather helpful little web demonstration […]

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