KeithEmo
Member of the Trade: Emotiva
- Joined
- Aug 13, 2014
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No.... the problem is that a lot of people don't seem to understand how you calculate whether a given characteristic is important in a particular design or not.
Combining things is fine... as long as you remember that there are several factors involved and calculate them separately where appropriate.
For example, in a typical power supply, a standard electrolytic capacitor will work fine.
This is because the capacitor isn't being asked to conduct high levels of current (not much ripple current; and what there is at a relatively low frequency).
Therefore, the amount of heat generated due to its ESR will not be significant.
However, if you use that same capacitor in a switching supply, it may well overheat.
This is because, in a switching supply, that capacitor is being asked to filter high ripple currents at high frequencies, which subjects it to higher losses from its equivalent series resistance.
Therefore, in that application, heating is an issue, and a low ESR electrolytic capacitor, or even a better type with much lower ESR, is indicated.
As it so happens, the construction of a typical electrostatic speaker results in a very low ESR, even at high frequencies, so it is NOT subject to heat from current flow at audio frequencies.
In other words, in order to understand what will happen, you have to load your model with appropriate values for the particular circuit you're discussing.
(For example, in a capacitor, you need to know how much ripple current it will be expected to conduct at the frequencies and voltages it will be operating at.)
Combining things is fine... as long as you remember that there are several factors involved and calculate them separately where appropriate.
For example, in a typical power supply, a standard electrolytic capacitor will work fine.
This is because the capacitor isn't being asked to conduct high levels of current (not much ripple current; and what there is at a relatively low frequency).
Therefore, the amount of heat generated due to its ESR will not be significant.
However, if you use that same capacitor in a switching supply, it may well overheat.
This is because, in a switching supply, that capacitor is being asked to filter high ripple currents at high frequencies, which subjects it to higher losses from its equivalent series resistance.
Therefore, in that application, heating is an issue, and a low ESR electrolytic capacitor, or even a better type with much lower ESR, is indicated.
As it so happens, the construction of a typical electrostatic speaker results in a very low ESR, even at high frequencies, so it is NOT subject to heat from current flow at audio frequencies.
In other words, in order to understand what will happen, you have to load your model with appropriate values for the particular circuit you're discussing.
(For example, in a capacitor, you need to know how much ripple current it will be expected to conduct at the frequencies and voltages it will be operating at.)
I understand your confusion. The DC property of resistance as well as AC property of reactance is in the circuit. I get it, you are not used to people combining the findings of both analysis.