Ceramic Capacitor Value Identification

To express those small values succinctly we use the metric system.

Ceramic capacitor value identification.

Ceramic capacitor definition a ceramic capacitor is a capacitor which uses a ceramic material as the dielectric. Then by just using numbers and letters as codes. A ceramic capacitor is a fixed value capacitor where the ceramic material acts as the dielectric it is constructed of two or more alternating layers of ceramic and a metal layer acting as the electrodes the composition of the ceramic material defines the electrical behavior and therefore applications. Capacitor values are usually tiny often in the millionths or billionths of a farad.

The capacitor on the left is of a ceramic disc type capacitor that has the code 473j printed onto its body. Then the 4 1 st digit the 7 2 nd digit the 3 is the multiplier in pico farads pf and the letter j is the tolerance and this translates to. The two most common types are multi layer ceramic capacitors and ceramic disc capacitors. 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.

There are two classes of ceramic capacitors available today. 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. Class 1 and class 2. 47pf 1 000 3 zero s 47 000 pf 47nf or 0 047uf the j indicates a tolerance of 5.

When the first two numbers are multiplied with the multiplier the resulting value is the value of the capacitor in picofarads. Capacitor identification capacitor marking review. The following prefixes are the modern convention. Characteristics precision and tolerances.