How to Read Capacitance on Ceramic Capacitors | 50 Diff. Capacitors

[AdkinsJr]

I cannot find info on how to read capacitance on all these ceramic capacitors in my lab. I probably have 50 different capacitors but cannot find instructions on how to read most of them, any instructions I find on how to give the multiplier or whatever seems to apply to only a handful. and its' very time consuming and Google is not working well either. The lab at the school I'm at is disorganized beyond belief so I just have 100's of these things laying around...Any help would be appreciated.

Many will have something like this: 10%
D .01
Z5P

20%
D 6800
Z5P

20%
.005 K
Z5P

10%
D .01
Z5P

There are also many with this written on one side:
KCK
220J
N750

Z5U
4700M
1KV

HliQ
.001
Z5R
IKV

E
.002
K
X5F

.0027
10%
Z5P

Now I know the percentage should be the tolerance right? How do I assess if it's in pico, nano, micro farads etc?

 

[gneill]

This question would have been at home in the general technical section rather than here in the homework section, but I suppose you can be accommodated here :) And you really should have wrapped the posting template around it to post here... just so you know for future posts.

Different manufacturers may use different ways to express the component's characteristics. Try using google images and searching on "ceramic capacitor code". You should see a number of charts and examples to compare with your capacitors.

You might want to have the lab invest in a multimeter that has a capacity/inductance measurement function. They're not that expensive. That way you can at least find the capacitance of a "mystery cap".

 

[davenn]

Now I know the percentage should be the tolerance right? How do I assess if it's in pico, nano, micro farads etc?

for tolerance, yes and for values usually whole numbers without a suffix pF, uF etc will always be in pF, and decimal point values will always be in uF ... so...10%
D .01 = 0.01uF
Z5P

20%
D 6800 = 6800pF
Z5P

20%
.005 K = 0.005uF
Z5P

10%
D .01 = 0.01uF
Z5P

There are also many with this written on one side:
KCK
220J = 220 pF
N750
Z5U

4700M = 4700 pF
1KV

HliQ
.001 = 0.001 uF
Z5R
IKV

E
.002 = 0.002 uF
K
X5F

.0027 = 0.0027 uF
10%
Z5P

cheers
Dave