From what I understand, a capacitor is used to store electric charge and when it is fully charged it can release electricity. When I looked at a capacitor, I found two pieces of information on it:
- Capacitance (4n7)
- Voltage Rating (1kV)
As I understand, the voltage rating on a capacitor is the maximum amount of voltage that a capacitor can safely be exposed to and can store. But what about when it is fully charged and released, how much voltage can it release? Does it equal the voltage rating?
Best Answer
Whatever that may mean to you, "releasing voltage" is not a proper way to think of what a capacitor does.
Electric power is delivered to a capacitor when charging and electric power is supplied by a capacitor when discharging. Thus, capacitors store electric energy.
The more energy stored by a given capacitor, the more voltage there must be across the capacitor. In fact, the energy stored by a capacitor is proportional to the square of the voltage across:
\$W_C = \dfrac{CV^2}{2}\$
where C is the capacitance. The greater the capacitance, the more energy stored for a given voltage.
But, real capacitors can be damaged or have their working life shortened by too much voltage. Thus, the voltage rating of a capacitor.
To summarize, a capacitor does not release voltage, a capacitor stores and releases energy.