/diy/ - Do It Yourself

>>137451 Once it's at full capacity it will release all of it's charge in one big surge.


>>137458 once a capacitor reached peak charge, it discharges.


What you both have wrong is you think a capacitor will AUTOMATICALLY discharge once it has reached capacity. A capacitor can be discharged once at full charge (or any other) , and it will do so very quickly, but its not something that happens on its own.

I've drawn a simple circuit of a capacitor used to boost the power of a solenoid. The power supply can't supply that much current all at once. When the switch is open that current slowly builds up in the capacitor. When the switch is closed the capacitor dumps everything its stored into the solenoid.

There are circuits which will make capacitors automatically discharge when near capacity, they usually rely on a zener diode divider triggering a complimentary transistor pair.