What Does The Numbers On Small Ceramic Capcitors Mean

The above image shows a mylar film capacitor.

What does the numbers on small ceramic capcitors mean.

This letter represents the tolerance of the capacitor meaning how close the actual value of the capacitor can be expected to be to the indicated value of the capacitor. As you can see the high side of the 35 µf capacitance tolerance 37 1 µf does not meet the low side of the capacitance tolerance of the 40 µf 37 6 µf capacitor you are trying to replace it with. Although they work in completely different ways capacitors and batteries both store electrical energy if you have read how batteries work then you know that a battery has two terminals inside the battery chemical reactions produce electrons on one terminal and absorb electrons on the other terminal. If you have a capacitor that has nothing other than a three digit number printed on it the third digit represents the number of zeros to add to the end of the first two digits.

However small capacitors don t have enough room for all that. You can quickly identify a through hole ceramic capacitor by looking for the small yellow or red bulbs with two terminals sticking out of them. The first two numbers describe the value of the capacitor and the third number is the number of zeros in the multiplier. Ceramic disc capacitors have two to three digits code printed on them.

Unlike their electrolytic counterparts ceramic capacitors hold a smaller charge but also leak less current. The first is used with small ceramic capacitors and appears as a single letter. 5 µf 6 4 7 to 5 3 µf 4 µf 6 3 76 to 4 24 µf. Ceramic capacitors which are usually tiny pancakes with two pins typically list the tolerance value as one letter immediately after the three digit capacitance value.

In a way a capacitor is a little like a battery. 7 is not. The two most common types are multi layer ceramic capacitors and ceramic disc capacitors. The top 683 marking indicates the capacitance value which is 68 000 picofarads pf.

To get this value you multiply the leading digits 68 in this case by 10 raised to the power of the last digit 3 and the result is the capacitance in picofarads in this case we get 68x10 3 pf. Class 1 and class 2. A ceramic capacitor is a capacitor which uses a ceramic material as the dielectric. This also is the same for 5 µf and the 4 µf capacitors.

They also happen to be the cheapest capacitor of the bunch so stock up. The second is used for a variety of capacitor types and is indicated by a unique assortment of lettrs and numbers which represent the low and high temperature requirements the lower and upper acceptable temperature range of operating the capacitor and its. There are two classes of ceramic capacitors available today. There are three exceptions for the last digit.