Is there any way to determine power capacity (in (m)Ah) from farads and voltage?

[Howard]

TIA

 

[pm]

I hope this isn't a question from your homework, Howard.

Capacitors are measured in Farads (F). A 1 F capacitor can store 1 coulomb of charge at 1V. One amp is the electron flow of 1 coulomb of electrons per second at 1V. So a 1F can provide 1A/s of electrons at 1V, or 5A/s of electrons at 5V. Since capacitors are measured in Farads and batteries are typically measured in mAh, I presume that you want to compare the storage of a battery vs. a capacitor. To compare a battery and a capacitor, take a typical 1.2V 1200mAh AA NiMH cell. Convert the 1.2Ah into seconds (1.2Ah * 3600s)/1.2V is 3600Farad. 3600F is a lot of capacitors. The key here would be to use a higher voltage than 1.2V to charge the capacitor to achieve the same charge storage using smaller capacitors.

 

[Howard]

Nope.

Thanks.