Tuning Capacitors

Tuning capacitors are popular type of variable capacitors. They contain a stator, a rotor, a frame to support the stator and a mica capacitor. The constructional details of a tuning capacitor are shown in the following figure.

The stator is a stationary part and rotor rotates by the movement of a movable shaft. The rotor plates when moved into the slots of stator, they come close to form plates of a capacitor. When the rotor plates sit completely in the slots of the stator then the capacitance value is maximum and when they don’t, the capacitance value is minimum.

The above figure shows a ganged tuning capacitor having two tuning capacitors connected in a gang. This is how a tuning capacitor works. These capacitors generally have capacitance values from few Pico Farads to few tens of Pico Farads. These are mostly used in LC circuits in radio receivers. These are also called as Tuning Condensers.