I'm poking around on eBay for some capacitors to use in circuits which I'm working on and see that they have a rated voltage.
After some quick research, I found that going over the rated voltage of a component can cause harm and/or destroy it.
Does the same happen if I go under it?
My circuit runs on a 1.5V battery and the cheap (xD) capacitors I was looking at have a rating of 50V and 16V. Will this affect my circuit in anyway, as I am running like 58.5V less through them?
Best Answer
It depends on the component what a rating means. Some voltage ratings are such that you should supply the device only the rated voltage (+/- some tolerance). Examples of these are most IC's/complete devices, which won't work properly when given too little voltage, and can be damaged if given too much voltage (not to say that too low voltage can't damage the device, or too high a voltage will allow a device to work properly).
Others are a simple max bound. Any voltage below the rated voltage is fine. This is the category capacitors fall into. The higher the limit, the better. So both the 50V and 16V capacitors will work just fine with a 1.5V battery. However, only the 50V capacitor will still work if you decide to hook up a 24V battery.