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Capacitors and inductors as used in electric circuits are not ideal components with only capacitance or inductance.However, they can be treated, to a very good degree of approximation, as being ideal capacitors and inductors in series with a resistance; this resistance is defined as the equivalent series resistance (ESR) [1].
Measuring ESR can be done by applying an alternating voltage at a frequency at which the capacitor's reactance is negligible, in a voltage divider configuration. It is easy to check ESR well enough for troubleshooting by using an improvised ESR meter comprising a simple square-wave generator and oscilloscope, or a sinewave generator of a few tens of kilohertz and an AC voltmeter, using a known ...
The ESR represents losses in the capacitor. In a good capacitor the ESR is very small, and in a poor capacitor the ESR is large. However, ESR is sometimes a minimum value to be required. Note that the ESR is not simply the resistance that would be measured across a capacitor by an ohmmeter. The ESR is a derived quantity with physical origins in ...
ESR is dependent on frequency and temperature. For ceramic and film capacitors in generally ESR decreases with increasing temperatures but heighten with higher frequencies due to increasing dielectric losses. For electrolytic capacitors up to roughly 1 MHz ESR decreases with increasing frequencies and temperatures.
For a simplified model of a capacitor as an ideal capacitor in series with an equivalent series resistance, the capacitor's quality factor (or Q) is the ratio of the magnitude of its capacitive reactance to its resistance at a given frequency:
A capacitance meter is a piece of electronic test equipment used to measure capacitance, [1] mainly of discrete capacitors. Depending on the sophistication of the meter, it may display the capacitance only, or it may also measure a number of other parameters such as leakage, equivalent series resistance (ESR), and inductance.
For any AC application the self-resonant frequency is the highest frequency at which a capacitor can be used as a capacitive component. At frequencies above the resonance, the impedance increases again due to ESL: the capacitor becomes an inductor with inductance equal to capacitor's ESL, and resistance equal to ESR at the given frequency.
For electrolytic capacitors, ESR generally decreases with increasing frequency and temperature. [60] ESR influences the superimposed AC ripple after smoothing and may influence the circuit functionality. Within the capacitor, ESR accounts for internal heat generation if a ripple current flows across the capacitor. This internal heat reduces the ...