Experiment 9 - Capacitors in Series

Which rules apply to two capacitors behave in a series circuit? What is the resulting total capacity? This is what you are looking at here.

This time you add a 100 μF capacitor in series to the experiment 4. For this build the shown circuit.

Circuit with two series-connected electrolytic capacitors. (Enlarge)

Circuit diagram of the circuit with two series-connected electrolytic capacitors.

Observe again the time it is required to load and to discharge the two capacitors. You notice that the LEDs light up half as long as only a 100 μF capacitor.

For two in series-connected capacitors, the total capacity C_total calculates with...

1 / C_total = 1 / C₁ + 1 / C₂

Series Circuit

If the components are connected such that there is only one path for the current through the components, it is called a series circuit.

From Kirchhoff's Current Law (KCL) follows that the same amount of current flows through all the components.

You can rewrite the formula to get...

C_total = ( C₁ * C₂ ) / ( C₁ + C₂ ) = ( 100 μF * 100 μF ) / ( 100 μF + 100 μF ) = 50 μF

The total capacity of a series circuit is therefore smaller than any of the individual capacities.

Experiment 10 - Series Circuit II

Experiment 9 - Capacitors in Series

Capacitor

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