A .02 uF capacitor discharging through a 33 ohm resistor has a time
constant of less than a microsecond. That isn't long enough to arrest any
sparking that results from the stored charge on the capacitor.
Personally, I believe the notion that small bypass capacitors can
cause relays to stick is mostly an amp community's urban legend. The energy
stored in the capacitor isn't enough to do that. In any event, sparking
occurs when the contacts open, when the capacitor is already discharged, and
not when they close. RC snubbers can reduce that kind of sparking. I
remember using snubbers across key contacts in the boatanchor era of
cathode keyed transmitters.
73,
Jim W8ZR
_______________________________________________
Amps mailing list
Amps@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/amps
|