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???
04/19/08 21:09
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#153722 - maybe you can measure it?
Responding to: ???'s previous message
You should probably contact the manufacturer. They'll give you the figures in a form that you'll find palatable to everyone to whom you have to report.

If you want to measure it, consider this possibility.

If you were to put a common logic-level n-channel very common MOSFET (e.g. MTD3055VL, but better one with even lower on-resistance), on the low side of your capacitor, and a shorting plug across it, with the source connected to a current mirror (high-impedance current sink), set to sink, say, 500 mA, you could pulse the gate of the MOSFET just long enough to make a measurement with one of your MCU-based 12-bit (if you're careful, you might get by with 10 bits) DAC's. That should give you a good picture of what the ESR is. You measure it with the shorting plug in place, and average the readings over, say, 1000 cycles. Then you open the shorting plug and see how much impact the capacitor has on the drain voltage. You may need a faster ADC than what ATMEL offers, however. Draw yourself a picture of the circuit with the capacitance and ESR in the circuit. You'll have to factor in the tolerance on capacitors of that size. It's usually quite wide.

For your purposes, you may be better off with TWO MOSFETS, one to charge the CAP, and one to discharge it. That will tell you things about the ESL, too.

I wouldn't go to the trouble before contacting the mfg, though.

RE




List of 11 messages in thread
TopicAuthorDate
Capacitor ESR calculation?            01/01/70 00:00      
   Data            01/01/70 00:00      
   You can't?            01/01/70 00:00      
      I was looking for formulae...            01/01/70 00:00      
         Are you sure?            01/01/70 00:00      
         Why are you looking for a formula?            01/01/70 00:00      
   maybe you can measure it?            01/01/70 00:00      
      The trouble with measuring it...            01/01/70 00:00      
         If he were to choose 50 from a lot of 1000            01/01/70 00:00      
            True, but            01/01/70 00:00      
               If he's buying surplus, there's a downside            01/01/70 00:00      

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