How do capacitors work when smoothing out a wave form?

Answer 1

A capacitor is charging when the amplitude of the voltage wave is rising (thus clipping off the top of the wave, since it is draining the wave to fill itself with charge), and the capacitor discharges when the wave is falling (thus filling in the trough, since the capacitor is emptying itself when the voltage is dropping).

Answer 2

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In this case, just type "capacitors+ waveform smoothing" into any search engine (don't include the quotation marks). You'll be doing a search for "capacitors" with the additional search parameter "waveform smoothing." Notice that there is no space before the plus and there is a space after. (Waveform is one word, so be sure to get that right.) Now click the "Search" button, which sometimes appears as a magnifying glass icon.

A listing of ten appropriate websites will appear. At the bottom of the page you'll find a number line (1 2 3 4 next). Click on these numbers to get the next page of selected websites. The websites are arranged in a particular order. The ones where your search parameters appear the most times are first. Notice that the size of each website is also displayed (for example, 67 k). Thus, smaller sites near the beginning of the list are generally your best bet and larger sites near the end of the list are less likely to have what you looking for. Also, for a simple question, a large site will require you to wade through a lot more data. Don't over-think these details, they're just helpful guidelines.

When you find a website that seems useful, place your cursor over the blue type near near the top. Blue underlines will appear. Left-click. Now you're inside the website. Look around and see if you can find what you're looking for. (Some websites have their own internal search engine, which is very helpful.) Use the blue left-arrow buttons at the upper-left corner of your screen to navigate between sites you've already visited, and especially to get yourself back to that list your search generated. Just keep trying different websites (or modify your search parameters) until you find what you're looking for.

Hint: You can also search for the source of memorable quotations and song lyrics if you surround your "parameter" with quotation marks.

Yes, I know I didn't actually answer your question. You should have seen what I almost sent you.....

Ancient Chinese Proverb: "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man how to fish and you've fed him for a lifetime."

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Answer 3

Capacitors are like a pair of basins to store excess of water .
Whenever there are fluctuations, some excess of electric charge will flow to one plate of the capacitor then to the other , thus dampening the amplitude of the wave, smoothing it out.

Answer 4

capacitors take a finite amount of time to charge and decay.
if the slope of the capacitor decay (dv/dt) is longer than the slope of the applied waveform, the peaks and troughs of the applied waveform will tend to be smoothed out