I was explaining to a friend while recapping their TV about needing to use higher or equivalent voltages, ripple, etc with replacements. While doing so he brought up something that made me think about capacitor voltages themselves based on the 'ground' voltage.
I would rate the capacitor based on a 0v or negative ground in the majority of cases. However I was wondering what in the instance of say.. the negative side of the cap having a positive voltage but less than the positive side within it's voltage range creating a forward potential less than the cap rating. I didn't find much on someone bringing this up and wondering if it is too risky to do in low voltage applications for personal testing.
Granted, I have tested this today in an Emitter/Follower transistor setup whereas the positive is connected to Base, negative connected to emitter. LEDs connected in parallel to ensure the voltages stay within 3.3v of each other in case the drop somehow goes beyond that. There has been no current between either led indicating that the difference has not gone as far as 3.3v. Results have seemed stable and the cap has been okay thus far during a 12hour 'burn in' thus far with a high ripple input.
In my test the output was at most 2v difference from base to emitter. Base/Emitter without load was 11.8v/11.10v respectively. The capacitor being used between them during testing is a crap-cap OST RLS series 6.3v/3300uf.
Being as the cap itself technically only sees at most 2-3v potential across it even during turn-on/off and full load would this be an okay situation for a lower voltage cap despite higher voltages on both sides of the cap itself.
This was simply a curiosity overall and a question I had in my mind which I am curious on others thoughts on the matter.
I would rate the capacitor based on a 0v or negative ground in the majority of cases. However I was wondering what in the instance of say.. the negative side of the cap having a positive voltage but less than the positive side within it's voltage range creating a forward potential less than the cap rating. I didn't find much on someone bringing this up and wondering if it is too risky to do in low voltage applications for personal testing.
Granted, I have tested this today in an Emitter/Follower transistor setup whereas the positive is connected to Base, negative connected to emitter. LEDs connected in parallel to ensure the voltages stay within 3.3v of each other in case the drop somehow goes beyond that. There has been no current between either led indicating that the difference has not gone as far as 3.3v. Results have seemed stable and the cap has been okay thus far during a 12hour 'burn in' thus far with a high ripple input.
In my test the output was at most 2v difference from base to emitter. Base/Emitter without load was 11.8v/11.10v respectively. The capacitor being used between them during testing is a crap-cap OST RLS series 6.3v/3300uf.
Being as the cap itself technically only sees at most 2-3v potential across it even during turn-on/off and full load would this be an okay situation for a lower voltage cap despite higher voltages on both sides of the cap itself.
This was simply a curiosity overall and a question I had in my mind which I am curious on others thoughts on the matter.
