ESC Capacitor Wiring

[Mugenextreme]

Looking for some info guys. Had to change the wires on the cap from a sxx esc due having to not enough wire to reach where i wanted to mount the cap. My question is how long can this wire be. Should it be as short as possible or can it be made as long as you want?

[damselfly]

Any length is fine on an electrolytic capacitor for this application. It's only at high frequencies that leads should be kept as short as possible.

[SlowOne]

Isn't it the case that the three-phase switching at high rpm would be high frequency? So isn't it the case (as it says in my speedo instructions) that you should keep the leads as short as possible? Just checking, because it won't be the first time that instructions with a product haven't stood the test of someone with a qualification in the subject!!

I've always used the wire length as supplied (eg LRP) or followed the instructions (in my case, keep it as short as possible) when fitting capacitors, unless someone with a professional qualification in electronics would like to put me straight. HTH :)

[damselfly]

I have an HNC in electronic engineering, but that was attained many years ago so i'm a bit rusty.
This was in the basics though.
Those electrolytics (capacitors) are just for supply decoupling (directly across the battery) and serve to dump voltage when a surge is requested. They operate at DC voltage and aren't subject to any frequencies. Basically they're there for stability.
Any value of the same microfarad or above if possible will perform the same or better.

PS- The main purpose of a capacitor is to store charge. They are used to pass AC and block DC, and are regularly used in filtering circuits, ETC. ETC.