Could we have something in here explaining this issue?
What Is an Electrical Capacitor?
By Paul Dohrman, eHow Contributor
An electrical capacitor is a device on which a charge collects. The usual shape is two metallic plates parallel to each other but touching only two terminal ends of a circuit wire, not each other. Electrons flow from one plate through the electrical circuit and to the other plate, due to the electromotive force of a battery or other source of energy. The charges on each plate are equal and opposite in polarity. The plates are therefore attractive.
Storage of Energy
1. Because the battery, or some other source of electromotive force, displaces electrons from one plate of the capacitor to another, energy is built up and stored in the capacitor. The circuit wires could be removed, and the charge difference between the plates would remain. The energy stored in the capacitor equals the energy required to keep the two plates apart, opposing their Coulomb attraction (an attraction due to their electrical charge). If the plates were not held in place, they would attract each other, make contact, and discharge.
Discharge
2. A voltage can be discharged by placing a piece of metal between the two plates, making contact with both. The excess electrons of the negatively charged plate would then rush over to the other plate, thus removing the excess negative charge on one plate, and the excess positive charge on the other.
Charge Accumulation
3. Charge accumulation is not absolute. That is, it does not stop until the capacitor is detached from the circuit. This is because getting the capacitor's voltage (due to the accumulation of charge) any proportion closer to the final voltage takes a finite amount of time. The voltage building up between the plates therefore has an asymptotic shape, when graphed against time.
In Alternating Currents
4. When the power source supplies an alternating current, the capacitor alternates charge polarity along with the circuit. Electrons falling onto one plate are then pulled off and sent to the other plate, and so on, each time the power source switches polarity.
Use in Electronic Products
5. Capacitors can be used for pulsed power, upon discharge of the charge on the capacitor plates. Pulsed power is useful when sudden bursts of energy are required, e.g. in a laser, or a linear accelerator.
Capacitors, after charging, can be used like a second battery, when the primary battery is being recharged. This is particularly important when vital memory is involved.
Capacitors can be used to smooth out fluctuations in power supply inside electronic equipment.
Capacitors are also used as noise filters, radio tuners, in amplifiers, and in numerous other devices.
I've looked for articles on capacitors used as energy draining devices , couldn't find any .Energy storage
A capacitor can store electric energy.
In car audio systems, large capacitors store energy for the amplifier to use on demand. Also for a flash tube a capacitor is used to hold the high voltage.
[edit] Pulsed power and weapons
Groups of large, specially constructed, low-inductance high-voltage capacitors (capacitor banks) are used to supply huge pulses of current for many pulsed power applications. These include electromagnetic forming, Marx generators, pulsed lasers (especially TEA lasers), pulse forming networks, radar, fusion research, and particle accelerators.
Large capacitor banks (reservoir) are used as energy sources for the exploding-bridgewire detonators or slapper detonators in nuclear weapons and other specialty weapons. Experimental work is under way using banks of capacitors as power sources for electromagnetic armour and electromagnetic railguns and coilguns.
Power conditioning
A 10,000 microfarad capacitor in a TRM-800 amplifier
Reservoir capacitors are used in power supplies where they smooth the output of a full or half wave rectifier. They can also be used in charge pump circuits as the energy storage element in the generation of higher voltages than the input voltage.
Capacitors are connected in parallel with the power circuits of most electronic devices and larger systems (such as factories) to shunt away and conceal current fluctuations from the primary power source to provide a "clean" power supply for signal or control circuits. Audio equipment, for example, uses several capacitors in this way, to shunt away power line hum before it gets into the signal circuitry. The capacitors act as a local reserve for the DC power source, and bypass AC currents from the power supply. This is used in car audio applications, when a stiffening capacitor compensates for the inductance and resistance of the leads to the lead-acid car battery.
This is where I have doubts. I do believe a capacitor will only replenish itself as fast as the circuit will allow it to. Just like an accumulator, it can only take what is available. Since it uses no power of its own (except for maybe a little dissipated in the form of heat), it will not consume any energy; therefore not putting any extra load on a circuit.but it will recharge as fast as it can, causing probably an even higher current-demand on the load-system and eventually drain itself and the battery, and kill the alternator when you play dynamic music at high volume level for a long time.
Yes you can! It's why its called an Irish screwdriveryou can't use a hammer to put in a screw..