Parallel Capacitor Calculator

This calculator determines the total effective capacitance of any number of capacitors in a parallel configuration.

Enter the capacitance values separated by commas.


	

			

		

						

				

				

                

			

			
						

		

		






Parallel Capacitance Formula





Ctotal = C1 + C2 + C3 +…. + Cn





Units





Units for Capacitance are Farad (F). When entering values above make sure the units are the same – i.e. they should all be one of the following:





    

  • Farad
    • 




  • Millifarad
    • 




  • Microfarad
    • 




  • Nanofarad
    • 




  • Picofarad
    • 




  • etc.
    • 






Example Calculation





Consider four caps in parallel: 1 µF, 6 µF, 15 µF and 100 µF. The total effective resistance is 122 µF.





If you have two caps – one large and the other small in parallel, the effective capacitance is closer to the larger value. For instance, 





1 F and 1000 F in parallel. The effective resistance is 1001 ≈ 1000 F





In the event that the same two capacitors are in series, the effective capacitance is closer to the smaller value. 





1 F in series with 1000 F is 0.999 F ≈ 1 F





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