The truth about Capacitors!

[BART]

I'll try to make this as simple and as useful as i can.

I have read plenty of misconception on this site about the use of capacitors for performance gains. First of all, replacing or adding capacitors to your motor will not make your car faster, in fact it will make it slower. A capacitor is an electrical storage device which discharges it's stored energy very quickly when presented with a load in which to discharge. If placed on the motor leads or directly on the motor itself it would have to use the energy which was intended to power your motor to charge the capacitor (which would take away from the energy that was intended for your motor in the first place).

The capacitors that are already on your motor are intended to reduce "noise" produced by a brushed motor and to absorb peak transient voltages caused by counter emf which occurs at high speeds and when the power to the motor is suddenly cut off.

Now for the slightly good part, there is a way to use capacitors for a slight performance advantage.

If a capacitor is connected to the battery connection of the main board (and in this case bigger is better) the capacitor would be charged whenever the batteries are inserted and able to discharge on demand much quicker than the batteries themselves whenever the board demanded power (when you hit the gas). The gains would be small but from reading your posts most of you guys are looking for any advantage possible.

A capacitor could be connected anywhere along the wires from the battery tray to the board but the closer to the board the better.