LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Capacitor: Series
built 659 days ago
Capacitive reactance is the "imaginary" impedance of a capacitor expressed in ohms. Note the negative sign, which implies that on a Smith Chart, adding series capacitance tends to rotate your reflection coefficient counterclockwise. It's a function of frequency.
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This can be countered by connecting 3 of these series set-ups in parallel, resulting in a 3x3 matrix of capacitors with the same overall capacitance as an individual capacitor but operable under three times the voltage. In this application, a large resistor would be connected across each capacitor to ensure that the total voltage is divided equally across each capacitor and ... to discharge the capacitors for safety when the equipment is not in use.
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In practice, a very large resistor might be connected across each capacitor to ensure that the total voltage is divided appropriately for the individual ratings, rather than by minute differences in the capacitance values. Another application is for use of polarized capacitors in alternating current circuits; the capacitors are connected in series, in reverse polarity, so that at any given time one of the capacitors is not conducting.
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The current through capacitors in series stays the same, but the voltage across each capacitor can be different. The sum of the potential differences (voltage) is equal to the total voltage. Their total capacitance is given by:
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