Capacitance vs Inductance 1

[Barry1990]

Hi Everyone - Trying to figure out which is worse, too much capacitance on a line or too much inductance? Any perspective you may have on this would be appreciated.

 

[davidbeach]

A perfect question for the universal Power Engineering answer - "it depends". Perhaps you could better define the problem.

 

[Skogsgurra]

Too much is never good.

Gunnar Englund

http://www.gke.org

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Half full - Half empty? I don't mind. It's what in it that counts.

 

[crshears]

The one that's worse is whichever one you end up dealing with.

CR

"As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another." [Proverbs 27:17, NIV]

 

[DanEE]

I consider the worst case to be the one that is the most inefficient or lossy to correct.

For example in using an "antenna tuner" to match a transmitter to a multi-band antenna impedance at a given frequency, I like to size the antennas slightly larger, so that it has a bit too much inductance on the planned operational frequencies where there will be some mismatch, because using air capacitors to add capacitance to balance out the excessive inductance is quite efficient.

On the other hand, the IR loss encountered in a variable inductor coil to add series inductance to balance out excessive capacitive tends to be quite lossy.

Therefore, I consider have too much capacitance (antenna impedance) in this situation "bad".

Your mileage in your application may vary...

 

[Barry1990]

Many thanks for your help and comments above, and in hindsight I should have put more information in the question. In line with DanEE's remarks, the worst for me is also defined as the one that is the most inefficient, most unreliable or most costly to correct. And as for the undefined variables, I guess I thought that the same answer would apply irrespective to the length of the distribution line.