Capacitor's wired in series HOW to ?

TurboFarviknugn

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It seems as though my SPARX capacitor has died after finding a short in my electrical system and running new wires to the kill switch, I have to jump the bike using a battery to get her to start while kicking. If I let it sit and run for 5 min and shut it off and wait more than about 2-3 min the cap has no juice, don't know I may have fried it or injured it while testing to find the short.

ANYWAY, I have a PAIR of capacitors being shipped out tomorrow and am thinking I am going to wire them in series, the question is do you just run a jumper wire from negative to negative and positive to positive ?

ALSO anyone got any pics of their capacitors installed ? I will have to fab another spring mount for the second one, have heard some say to mount them upside down for longevity, any truth to this ???

Lets see'em !!! :laugh:
 
THAT about explains it. Anyone got any pics of their ANTI-VIBRATION setup to prevent shaking them to hell ?

Thanks JD, some day when all the TEXAS xs'ers meet up I owe you a few cold ones !!!
 
Pos to pos and neg to neg is not a series connection, that's a parallel connection.
Series is one after another. Parallel is side by side.
Leo
 
In my opinion there isn't one. No need for two.
The capacitor isn't a storage device like a battery, it just loads the regulator so it can regulate the voltage.
Leo
 
I run my pair in parallel. when I had only 1, it would stall at red lights when the headlight was on. Now with two, no more stalling and it even starts easier.
 
Thanks for the input James, that is the info I am after. What type of mount did you use to mount yours to the bike ? How long have they lasted you so far ? Are yours the sparx brand ?
 
When you run two you double your micro f. It does help stablize and helps with starting. I may have over kill with two 31,000 micro f in series to total 62,000 it sure rubs smooth. I will keep both.
 
running capacitors in series reduces the capacitance in half.

running them in parallel doubles it.

so if you truely do have them wired in series vs parallel you have about 15,000 uf
 
When you run two you double your micro f. It does help stablize and helps with starting. I may have over kill with two 31,000 micro f in series to total 62,000 it sure rubs smooth. I will keep both.

NO you don't. The ONLY way you can get 62000 uf with two 31000 uf capacitors is to connect them in PARALLEL!
 
Thanks for the input James, that is the info I am after. What type of mount did you use to mount yours to the bike ? How long have they lasted you so far ? Are yours the sparx brand ?

mine are both sparx, and they are not mounted. I just have them tucked into a mesh basket under my seat, I didnt want to use that ugly spring mount.
 
You put capacitors in series when the system voltage is higher than a single cap is rated for. If you happened to have two big 9v caps laying around and you wanted to use them you could if you wire them in series. You'd want to add two resistors, one along side each cap. Without the resistors the caps will share the voltage according to their internal leakage resistance which isn't guaranteed to be equal. The resistors swamp that out and make the voltage sharing equal. If your caps are rated high enough to handle the voltage alone you would gain nothing by doing this, and in fact lose some filtering ability as others posted above.
 
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Couldn't put two in the electrics box the new one is just a pinch bigger than the old sparx :laugh:

capasitor.jpg

Got everything wired up and wahlah the short is back !!! :banghead: time to keep searching for the culprit poping my 7.5 amp fuse ! :mad:
 
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