Steve Evans wrote:

Sure did, Steve! I ran it through a spice program and you're right in
every detail. So there's obviously some basic flaw in my understanding
of caps. The textbooks say to treat a cap as a short circuit at AC
(assuiming its reactance isn't too high at the frequency of interest).
That would appear to be grossly misleading as there's a huge
difference between the mean voltage levels on each side. . .

The mean voltage on each side is the DC component. The fact that it's
different on the two sides illustrates the fact that the capacitor is an
open circuit to DC. The shape of the waveforms on the two sides of the
capacitor are the same. That illustrates that the AC component is the
same on both sides -- the capacitor is a short circuit to AC.

It's gonna
take me a while to get this trough my thick skull. :-(
So what happens when you have a small ac ripple riding on a DC bias?

The bias (DC) is removed, and the ripple (AC) is passed through.

I'll spice it but won't understand it, I guess. :-(

Roy Lewallen, W7EL