Power Electronics Capacitor Selection Toolbox (PE-CST)

Toolbox to select suitable foil capacitors for power electronics applications.

1   Installation

pip install pecst

2   Documentation

Capacitor input parameters:

• maximum_peak_to_peak_voltage_ripple
• current_waveform_for_op_max_current
• v_dc_for_op_max_voltage
• temperature_ambient
• voltage_safety_margin_percentage
• capacitor_type_list=[cst.CapacitorType.FilmCapacitor]
• maximum_number_series_capacitors
• capacitor_tolerance_percent
• lifetime_h

Features:

• calculating capacitors in series needed considering lifetime, voltage_safety_margin_percentage and temperautre_ambient according to datasheet curves
• calculating capacitors in parallel needed considering minimum required capacitance according to the given current waveform and maximum_peak_to_peak_voltage_ripple
• calculating capacitors in parallel needed considering maximum dv/dt per capacitor according to datasheet curves
• calculating capacitors in parallel needed considering the maximum current ratings per frequency (FFT) according to datasheet curves
• power loss calculation according to FFT current waveform with frequency-dependent ESR according to datasheet curves
• temperature rise calculation according to power loss and the capacitors thermal resistance according to datasheet curves
• volume calculation of the final setup
• calculating component cost regarding component cost models
• sort out non-working designs

Output:

• Performance space values: volume, power loss, cost

3   Quick start

• run the automated download of ESR files.
• run the Example capacitor selection file.