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switching capacitors

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shortbus=

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first i want to thank everyone who answered my other posts!

i'm building a EDM(electrical discharge machine) it basically charges a capacitor and then discharges it through a shaped electrode to machine that shape into a metal part.

i've got most of it worked out now. but what i need to know is, there are several different discharge caps that i will use and they will be switced in or out of the circuit. is it better to put the switch on the positive side of the capacitors or the negative side ?

does switcing the negative side off in effect take that cap out of the circuit?
that way the discharge current wouldn't have to pass through the switch, giving a shorter path to the electrode?

sorry for the long post,just trying to explain what i'm doing.
thank you, cary
 
Putting the switch on either the positive or negative side of the cap will work. But there's no particular advantage either way. The current still has to go through the switch, and the current path length to the electrode is the same (you have to include the negative path as well as the positive path to get the total current path length).
 
Putting the switch on either the positive or negative side of the cap will work. But there's no particular advantage either way. The current still has to go through the switch, and the current path length to the electrode is the same (you have to include the negative path as well as the positive path to get the total current path length).


carl,thank you for your reply!
does one or the other make any difference as to electro-magnetic interference in surrounding circuits? i am using some 40xx logic in some of the other circuits in the same enclosure. i don't want to cause problems in those.

again thank you for all your help, cary
 
No. Where you switch the cap will have negligible difference in the EMI generated.
 
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