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E5D05

ELECTRICAL PRINCIPLES · RF effects in components and circuits: skin effect; real and reactive power; electrical length of conductors

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What parasitic characteristic causes electrolytic capacitors to be unsuitable for use at RF?

  1. ASkin effect
  2. BShunt capacitance
  3. CInductance
  4. DDielectric leakage
Why Real capacitors are not pure capacitance. An electrolytic is built from long strips of foil and paper rolled into a cylinder, and those turns plus the long leads act as a series inductance. At RF that parasitic inductance (along with high equivalent series resistance) dominates, and above the part's self-resonant frequency the capacitor actually behaves inductively, so it no longer bypasses or couples RF.
Watch out Dielectric leakage is a real electrolytic flaw, but it is a DC/low-frequency loss (self-discharge) and is not what kills their RF performance; skin effect describes current crowding in conductors, not a capacitor parasitic.
Rolled foil = a coil in disguise: electrolytics fail at RF because of series inductance and self-resonance.
HamSandwich explanation, first draft. The question and answers are the NCVEC text.
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The rest of E5D

  1. E5D01 What is the result of conductor skin effect?
  2. E5D02 Why is it important to keep lead lengths short for components used in circuits for VHF and above?
  3. E5D03 What is the phase relationship between current and voltage for reactive power?
  4. E5D04 Why are short connections used at microwave frequencies?
  5. E5D05 What parasitic characteristic causes electrolytic capacitors to be unsuitable for use at RF?
  6. E5D06 What parasitic characteristic creates an inductor's self-resonance?
  7. E5D07 What combines to create the self-resonance of a component?
  8. E5D08 What is the primary cause of loss in film capacitors at RF?
  9. E5D09 What happens to reactive power in ideal inductors and capacitors?
  10. E5D10 As a conductor's diameter increases, what is the effect on its electrical length?
  11. E5D11 How much real power is consumed in a circuit consisting of a 100-ohm resistor in series with a 100-ohm induct…
  12. E5D12 What is reactive power?
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