1.2 KiB
RC Time Constant
How much time does it take for a capacitor to charge up to a certain charge.
\tau = RC
Example:
We have a capacitor with a capacitance of 200$\micro F$ and a circuit resistance of 100$\ohm$
Then:
\begin{flalign}
\tau = RC \\
\tau = 200 * 10^-6 * 100 \\
\tau = 0.02s
\end{flalign}
A capacitor is usually charged at around 5RC, so:
5RC = 5*0.02=0.1s
Example 2:
\begin{flalign}
&R = 47k\ohm &&\\\
&C = 1000\micro F\\
\\
&\tau = 47.000 * 0.001 = 47s \\
\end{flalign}
In words this means after 47 seconds the capacitor will be at 63% of the input voltage, and after 235 Seconds, or around 4 minutes, it will be at 99% of the input voltage.
Usages
Low Pass Filter
We can use capacitors to filter out any signal above a certain frequency in a signal. This is called a low pass filter. This is usefull to filter out noise in a signal for example.
We can see here that the high frequencies are reduced, while the low frequencies keep their strength. Above a certain frequency the signal is reduced by 70%, that point is called the cutoff frequency. We can calculate that point like this:
\begin{flalign}
f_{3db} = \frac{1}{2 \pi RC} &&\\
\end{flalign}