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When capacitors are connected in series in a DC circuit, the voltage drop across individual capacitors at and immediately after the initial charging period is inversely proportional to the individual capacitance of each capacitor. But afterwards, this began to change due to leakage current.

  1. How does this affect individual voltages across each capacitor?

  2. Will this process eventually result in the capacitor with the lowest leakage current gaining a voltage drop nearly equal to the voltage drop across all of the capacitors in series?

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Yes and maybe (unpredictable). That's why in practical cases, we put in balancing resistors to equalize the voltage. The resistors have to be low enough in resistance to dominate the leakage, but not so low that they seriously affect what the circuit is supposed to do.

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  • $\begingroup$ Balance resisters help mitigate such a scenario. Of course, as you mentioned current flow through balance resisters should be significant enough to dwarf the leakage current but within reasonable limits to limit heat and improve efficiency. $\endgroup$
    – Duke William
    Jul 7 at 13:16

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