Series of capacitors

[Thomas]

Hi everybody!

I am currently in the process of gathering parts for building an amplifier or two.

I am thinkin' of building one of those Alephs.

Well, her's the question: Is it practical to series, lets say four 16V caps to "one" 64V capacitor per voltage rail?

The reason I ask is that Apex Jr. have some 230000uF 16V computer grade caps. If nothing else shows up while waiting for my 1010VA toroids, I would like to know if these are any good for my use.

 

[GRollins]

You are free to use capacitors in series, but keep in mind that the effective capacitance will drop--much like using resistors in parallel. If you do so, you'll need to provide a balancing resistor across each capacitor to insure that the voltage drop across each cap remains constant. Otherwise it will tend to drift and could exceed the voltage rating of the cap.
In most cases it's not cost effective.

Grey

 

[lemondog]

Im using 2 50v 150,000 caps in series and have had no problems so far i couldn't find any 100v caps that had the capacitance that i needed but this comebination did and for cheap too about £10 per cap.

but to put 4 in series could cause some inconsistancies in the voltage across the caps and yeah as GRollins has stated 16v caps my not be the best thing to do two 35v one would be ok

 

[Thomas]

Ok, so four in series is to push it a little bit, but two would be ok. I will search for at least half the voltage needed.

- I have plenty of time to do so, as my toroids from Apex Jr are 6-8 weeks on their way.

Thanks for the answers.