DEFIBRILLATOR CAPACITORS

A heart-starting burst

❤️

Typical ratings About 2–6 kV, tens to a couple of hundred µF, roughly 150–500 J

Construction Metallized polypropylene, self-healing, oil-filled or dry

Energy density Among the highest of any film capacitor, around 1–2 J/cm³

Special needs Very low leakage for battery-powered units, and thousands of shots

Defibrillator capacitors push energy density hard because every cubic centimetre is carried by a person.

PULSE-POWER CANS

Kiloamps on command

⚡

Typical ratings Tens to hundreds of kilovolts, peak currents up to hundreds of kiloamps

Construction Film/foil, oil-impregnated, extended foil and end spray, many sections in series

Priorities Low inductance, reversal tolerance and long shot life

Users Lasers, accelerators, Marx generators and research labs

Pulse-power cans trade size for brute current, low inductance and life.

DC LINK AND POWER FACTOR

🔁

DC link Around 1 kV, hundreds to thousands of µF, smoothing the DC bus in inverters and drives

DC link priorities Very low ESR and ESL, high ripple current, long life

Power factor correction AC capacitors on factory power, rated in kVAR

PFC safety Self-healing film, a pressure interrupter that disconnects a swelling can, and a discharge resistor

Not every film capacitor is a pulse part; many run continuously for decades.

DESIGN CHALLENGE

Read each job and choose the construction you'd build it with.

Match the construction to the duty: current, voltage, density and how it should fail.

WHO BUILDS THEM

👷

🏭

Owns the process: yield, SPC, root cause, equipment and work instructions

🧪

Hipot, partial discharge, ring-down and life testing, plus failure analysis

📐

Turns a customer's voltage, energy and life needs into a capacitor

Everything in this course, from film physics to SPC, is the daily work of these teams.

UNIT 14 STUDY COMPLETE

🏆

You've matched real capacitor designs to real jobs. Finish the last Fab Challenge to complete the course.