The Capacitor
The Capacitor Figure 1 : Two capacitors (Non-polarized on left and polarized on right) You can think of a capacitor as a battery with very low capacity. You can charge and discharge it, just like a battery. The capacitor is often used to introduce a time-delay in a circuit. For example to blink a light (check out the example in the Integrated Circuit section). But it’s also useful for removing noise in an audio signal, or make the power supply of a circuit more stable. Capacitors come as polarized and non-polarized capacitors. The biggest difference is that with the polarized capacitor, you have a positive and a negative pin and you need to make sure to connect them correctly. You can connect non-polarized capacitors any way you want. So which one to choose? You never need your capacitor to be polarized. But for larger values, the capacitors are made with a material that makes them polarized. So, sometimes you don't have any choice but to use a polarized one. Figure 2 : Three diff