Is it possible to use a unpolarized capacitor in place of a polarized
capacitor of equal value in a circuit?

adrian.gali...@gmail.com> wrote in message

news:1170368271.551588.21980@a34g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...

Is it possible to use a unpolarized capacitor in place of a polarized
capacitor of equal value in a circuit?

Yes. They are often physically larger, though.

Is it possible to use a unpolarized capacitor in place of a polarized
capacitor of equal value in a circuit?

adrian.gali...@gmail.com wrote:
Is it possible to use a unpolarized capacitor in place of a polarized
capacitor of equal value in a circuit?

Yes.

Now tell us why you want to do this.

Graham

Is it possible to use a unpolarized capacitor in place of a polarized
capacitor of equal value in a circuit?

You've missed the point. There are polarized capacitors because that's

(adrian.gali...@gmail.com) writes:
Is it possible to use a unpolarized capacitor in place of a polarized
capacitor of equal value in a circuit?

You've missed the point. There are polarized capacitors because that's
what happens with a given construction, and that given construction is
used when capacitance goes above a certain level.

The larger the capacitance of a capacitor, the less likely you'll find
anything but electrolytic and tantalum (and hence polarized capacitors)
because using other methods would result in non-polarized capacitors
which would result in capacitors that were physically way too large.

I can't think of a single application that would require one to specify
a polarized capacitor. The times they are specified, it's because that's
the cheapest/easiest way (or sometimes the only possible way) to get the
needed capacitance.

And of course, some applications don't do so well with polarized capacitors,
so at those times one has to go out of one's way to get a non-polarized
capacitor of the large enough capacitance, or use some workaround to
get the equivalent that is non-polarized.

Rarely will you come across a polarized capacitor in a circuit that can
more easily be found in a non-polarized capacitor, hence usually there
isn't a good reason to put in a non-polarized where a polarized capacitor
is specified. Doing such a substitution should not cause a problem,
other than higher cost and a physically larger capacitor.

Michael

Eeyore <rabbitsfriendsandrelati...@hotmail.com>wrote:
adrian.gali...@gmail.com wrote:
Is it possible to use a unpolarized capacitor in place of a polarized
capacitor of equal value in a circuit?

Yes.

Now tell us why you want to do this.

Graham

It is used in a PWM circuit and I accidentally bought a non-polarized
capacitor. I just needed to make sure it wasn't going to keep the
circuit from working.