On 2010-06-04 05:22, Invisible wrote:
> Some capacitors are small brown things like little chocolate buttons.
> (But significantly less tasty.) Then there's the "electrolytic" ones,
> which are small blue things that look like they belong in a licorish
> all-sorts bag. Some a really small (about 5mm diammeter). Some are a bit
> bigger (15 mm diammeter).
>
> When I was in my dad's loft, I found capacitors the size of friggin'
> soda cans! o_O WTF are *those* for??
>
> (I mean, are they that size because they have a higher capacitance or
> something? I gather a capacitor is one of the few components where the
> physical size of the device determines its electronical characteristics...)

My dad would bring home/have all sorts of sizes of stuff like that. 
Probably still has an arbitrary mass of otherwise unidentifiable 
components.  (He worked at GTE Airfone for most of my childhood.)  The 
bigger capacitors would go with heavier-duty electronics...a good UPS, I 
imagine, probably has one or more of them.

Guess it just depends what sub-branch of electrical engineering your dad 
is into and you get to see as a kid.

--
Tim Cook
http://empyrean.freesitespace.net

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