Experimenting with Polymer Capacitors: The Challengers

dougw Canada

Polymer Charge Pump

Synopsis: I will focus on DC bias, temperature, and mechanical performance.  I designed a charged pump circuit board, which will be built in 2 variants: a polymer capacitor and an MLCC variant.  They are driven by a power oscillator on another circuit board I've designed.

Douglas Wong's project blogs

fmilburn USA

Deep Dive into ESR (Equivalent Series Resistance)

Synopsis: My project will help others understand ESR better, such as what it is and how it can be measured.  I will also obtain experimental capacitance values at room temperature for various capacitors.

Frank Milburn's project blogs

fyaocn China

Performance in Medical Instrumentation Amplifier

Synopsis: This experiment is about the performance of polymer capacitors in instrumentation amplifiers for medical applications.  It particularly focuses on the instrument amplifier AD8424 using low ESR, the performance of polymer capacitors shall be tested and verified.

F. Yao's project blogs

ipv1 Canada

Filtering Applications for Embedded Systems & PSUs

Synopsis: The focus of this project would be to create a set of tests for the use of the provided capacitors in creating filters. In particular, the use of such filters in embedded applications that may be plagued by stray signals which would hinder performance. I would be either breadboarding or using a general-purpose PCB to conduct the following experiments on the devices.

Inderpreet Singh's project blogs

neuromodulator Chile

Capacitor Characterization

Synopsis:  I will explore ways to measure capacitor electrical parameters with inexpensive tools (test equipment, microcontrollers, electronic components, etc), testing how temperature affects parameters such as capacitance, leakage current, and ESR; this will largely depend on what will work. The capacitor leads will be waterproofed and submerged into heated water where their properties are measured.

Miguel Pineiro's project blogs

ralphjy USA

Experimenting with Polymer Capacitors

Synopsis: I would build a test circuit to characterize the frequency/voltage vs capacitance performance.  I'd also like to build a switching power supply circuit to evaluate the ripple filtering performance.  I would be concurrently roadtesting a portable handheld power supply and could hopefully use that to test the charge/discharge characteristics of the different capacitor types.

Ralph Yamamoto's project blogs

14rhb UK

How Low Can You Go?

Synopsis: I would like to prove how physically lower-profile these capacitors are in comparison to the usual electrolytics. My project is simple but shows how polymer capacitors are touted as ideal for PSU. I have already designed the PSU with Texas Instrument's online WEBENCH software. I reviewed this product as Texas Instruments' WEBENCH FPGA Power Architect - Reviewed  and found the basic PSU in that package to be really comprehensive. Therefore, I aim to make a nice little compact PSU using the Panasonic polymer capacitors from the pack, a few components from TI, and my homemade PCB.

Rod's project blogs

rsc USA

Portable CTA Anemometer Circuit

Synopsis: I'm developing a portable circuit for Hot Film anemometry that needs to be as small as possible. I believe polymer caps might be a good solution for this circuit because the power supply components are large.

R. Scott Coppersmith's project blogs

COMPACT Australia

Vintage Computer Designs

Synopsis: I have a lot of vintage electronic devices that make loud noises or produce smoke and glowing fireballs when powered up due to time.  I'd like to test the claims that Polymer capacitors can be used as superior capacitor replacements to extend these devices' longevity and improve their operational stability and safety, whilst using fewer capacitors.

Very Compact's project blogs