Ceramic Capacitor Value Identification

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.

Ceramic capacitor value identification.

The capacitor on the left is of a ceramic disc type capacitor that has the code 473j printed onto its body. Capacitor values are usually tiny often in the millionths or billionths of a farad. Let s face it a farad is a lot of capacitance. The two most common types are multi layer ceramic capacitors and ceramic disc capacitors.

47pf 1 000 3 zero s 47 000 pf 47nf or 0 047uf the j indicates a tolerance of 5. 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. Capacitor identification capacitor marking review. There are two classes of ceramic capacitors available today.

To express those small values succinctly we use the metric system. Characteristics precision and tolerances. The following prefixes are the modern convention. Then by just using numbers and letters as codes.

Ceramic disc capacitors have two to three digits code printed on them. The first two numbers describe the value of the capacitor and the third number is the number of zeros in the multiplier. When the first two numbers are multiplied with the multiplier the resulting value is the value of the capacitor in picofarads. 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.