Resistors & Capacitors

Resistors and capacitors are two of the most common elements in

electronic circuits. The resistor is a component which, as the name
indicates, introduces opposition to electrical current into the circuit.
Although this seems counter-productive in a system, it is desirable to
have elements that conduct electricity poorly (without completely
halting the flow since they provide the opportunity to act as
transducers and transform electrical energy into another form of
energy such as light or heat.
Two of the most common groups of resistors are called !wire wound!
and !carbon composition!, depending on the material they are made
of. A different type of resistor is chosen when considering the amount
of current in the system" carbon composition resistors (#nowing that
carbon is a highly resistive element handle lower current situations,
and wire wound resistors are used when high currents are involved.
The unit chosen for determining the amount of resistance of a
component is the $hm (, named after %erman physicist %eorg
&imon $hm. 't is a conventional unit that describes the resistance of
an element in a circuit when the applied voltage is ( volt and the
current is ( ampere (as described in $hm)s law.
'n a capacitor, the flow of electrons between two conductors (ideally
two plates is actually interrupted in its entirety by an insulating
device. As soon as there are positive and negative charges flowing
from a voltage source into each end of the capacitors, the component
charges up (the time it ta#es for it to charge being determined by
whether there are resistors in the circuit path and by the component)s
capacitance value.
The conventional unit for capacitance is a !farad! (*, which
represents the capacity of a capacitor component to store ( Coulomb
(+.,- billion billion electrons of charge when a potential of ( volt is
applied on the positive terminal of the component.
&ince the electrons cannot go from the positive end of the capacitor to
its negative end, the charge is stored in the component. The capacitor
wor#s as a sort of battery, although as soon as it is re-connected to a
circuit the charges dissipate.
The capacitance value of said capacitor is the same in any circuit, and
depends on" the area (A of the two plates it consists of. the distance
(s between said plates. and the dielectric constant of the insulation
between those plates.
Another use for capacitors besides storing a small amount of charge is
filtering the signal that eventually passes through it (withholding high
fre/uency content and letting low fre/uencies through.