Capacitor Charging Discharging Advantage Disadvantage in Electrical Circuit

Hey, in this article we are going to know what are the advantages and disadvantages of capacitor charging and discharging in electrical circuits or electronic circuits and other applications. 

We know Capacitor is a very well-known and useful passive components or device in both electrical and electronic engineering.

Generally, the capacitor is an electrical energy-storing device whose main function is to store electrical energy in the form of electric charge. The working of a capacitor mainly depends upon charging-discharging. Even all functions or facilities provided by a capacitor depend upon its charging and discharging characteristics.

Read Also: [Actual] Difference Between Capacitor and Condenser

What is the Charging of Capacitor?

When a capacitor is connected across a DC power supply, it draws DC current from the power supply and starts storing electrical energy in the form of electric charges. This is called the charging of capacitors.

A capacitor will store energy until the capacitor voltage becomes equal to the applied power supply voltage. It is good to remember that, a capacitor can store DC only not AC which means it can be charged in one polarity.

Another important charging characteristic of a capacitor is fast charging. Yes, a capacitor takes a very few seconds to get fully charged.

The fast-charging characteristics of a capacitor give many advantages in electrical or electronic circuits.

Read Also: When Capacitor store more Energy Series or Parallel connection?

What is Discharging of Capacitor?

When a capacitor is connected across a load or a resistance, then the stored charge in the plates of the capacitor will start flowing (as electrons or current) through the load resistance until the voltage across the capacitor is reduced to zero. This is called capacitor discharging.

Similar to charging, the capacitor takes very little time to discharge fully, in fact, if we do not connect any load then also it will discharge through the resistance of the dielectric material. Of course, we can control the charging and discharging time but can increase for a long time.

Read Also: [Explained] Why Inductor block AC and Capacitor block DC?

Capacitor Charging Discharging Advantages

1. The most important and useful advantage of the charging-discharging characteristics of a capacitor is the Timing Circuit. An analog timer circuit cannot be built up without a capacitor.

2. Another advantage is in flash memory, yes the fast charging-discharging characteristics of a capacitor are used to make flash memory such as Dynamic RAM.

3. You know, in our smartphone, the flashlight for the camera also uses capacitors for its operation. Here, first, the capacitor is energized with high energy, then its energy is applied to the LED to glow with a very high illumination for a concise time when we capture photos with the camera.

4. The capacitor charging-discharging characteristics help with voltage boosting, signal boosting, etc.

5. The fast charging-discharging characteristics of a capacitor are used for electrical and electronic power supply circuits such as rectifier circuits as an energy reservoir.

Read Also: Why Resistance of a Winding or Coil always measured with DC not AC?

Disadvantages of Capacitor Charging Discharging

1. Although the fast charging and discharging characteristics of a capacitor are very useful for some applications (noted in the above paragraph), but this also be called a big disadvantage of capacitors. Yes, due to fast charging-discharging, we cannot use a capacitor for long time energy storing devices. For long-term energy storage, we need a battery or supercapacitors.

2. The automatic discharging is also a disadvantage of the capacitor even if it is not connected with any load.

3. The quick discharging of a capacitor is very dangerous for humans while working with electrical.

4. The quick charging and discharging characteristics of a capacitor can create overvoltage, surge voltage, and distortion, in electrical and electronic circuits.

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