created at June 3, 2021

Equivalent capacity

A capacitor is an electric component with two planar conductors and dielectric plate between them, which can store electric energy (charge). The capacitor's ability to store charge is expressed through its capacity, being measured with Farads. The capacity binds together the voltage applied on capacitor's terminals, and the charge:

Q = C\cdot U\quad [F]\quad (1)

When a couple of capacitors are connected in serial, they could be replaced with an equivalent capacitor, which capacity is calculated as:

\frac{1}{C_{s}} = \frac{1}{C_{1}} + \frac{1}{C_{2}} + ... + \frac{1}{C_{n}}

All capacitors will have the same charge Q, but the voltage will be divided between capacitors according to formula (1).

For parallel connection all single capacities are summed together:

C_{p} = C_{1} + C_{2} + ... + C_{n}