<java_applet

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 height="500" width="500" 
 archive="Circuit.jar" 
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 p2name="startCircuit" p2value="Cap_Example.txt" 
 p3name="startLabel"  p3value="RC Example" 
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/>

Charging:

When voltage is applied to the capacitor current flows to charge it. Once the capacitor has reached the maximum charge it can hold, determined by it's capacitance (units are Farads), the current will come to a stop. However, this stop isn't sudden. As current flows to the capacitor and charge builds up, it becomes harder and harder to add more charge so the current slows down and voltage increases. So the current will gradually approach 0amp and the voltage will gradually reach the applied voltage.

Discharging:

Once the capacitor is applied to say a resistor in this case, the stored energy is spent up by the resistor. The current will spike and slowly fall and the voltage (in this case 5v) will gradually fall to 0v as the capacitor is discharged.

More details: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor