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Registered Member #1221
Joined: Wed Jan 09 2008, 06:17PM
Location: Odense, Denmark
Posts: 196
Hi guys, i kinda got a sort of embarasing question. Its cause im building a ZVS for some flybacks and stuff, and i got loads of old PCB's laying around and like 4-5 of them are from pc monitors so theres alot of capacitors but i cant read the "code" thats on them, like how much µF, nF, or pF or even what voltage their for. I already tried to look around for a while but i didnt really find anything, but i might have missed it. So i was hoping that someone would be uber kind and try to explain what those codes mean? I dont even know what that specific kind of capacitors are called but it just says, for example ".0041J 1600PP8" and stuff like that. Ive been interested in electronics for some time now but i dont have any fancy education, and we didnt learn anything about electronics in school.
Registered Member #135
Joined: Sat Feb 11 2006, 12:06AM
Location: Anywhere is fine
Posts: 1735
It's funny that you say that because in my classes we never went over reading capacitors, and i've got my freggin' degree now! Kinda sad huh.
Reading the cap is going to be situational.
if its an electrolytic you'd assume 1600 means 1600uF ( 10E-6 F for calculations)
you might see 1600 on a pp (polypropylene capacitor), but that too would be assumed to be in pF (10E-12 F) because how many 1600uF film foil caps exist out there? and if they did they would be the size of a truck!
So its totally situational.
Here is probably some more useful information though.
Caps are measured in picofarads, and the last digit the multiplier:
1....................1pf 10..................10p
f 101................100pf 102...............1000p
f or 1nf 103...............10,000pf or 10nf 104...............100,000pf or 100nf 105..............1,000,000pf or 1000nf or 1uf
you will see some tantalums marked 105, 106 or 107 sometimes, those are just large values like 1uf, 10uf or 100uf respectivily.
say you wanted to read a capacitor marked "224"
well thats 22 and multiplier of 10,000, (1 E 4 that's the multiplier, designated by 4) so you have 220,000pf or 220nf, or .22uf, all the same.
There are lots of other letters on the capacitor designating material like "MKP" metalized polypropylene film (I think, i'd have to check to be sure). and some markings are for temprature coefficient, as in ceramic caps, but i'd have to look that up to tell you exactly where those markings are because I haven't memorized those either.
Some markings like "CDE" are manufacturer, Corniel Doublier.
Sorry I don't have all the answers, but I hope this is a start.
Registered Member #191
Joined: Fri Feb 17 2006, 02:01AM
Location: Esbjerg Denmark
Posts: 720
First thing is to identify the dielectric, if its a film cap, i would guess 0.004uf 1600V. and usually they have standard values, like 22, 33, 47, 68.... these numbers always shows up as capacitance values.
Registered Member #1221
Joined: Wed Jan 09 2008, 06:17PM
Location: Odense, Denmark
Posts: 196
Thanks alot for all those kickass answers, kinda amazing you guys can just remeber all this stuff! you just saved me alot of moniez. But its really nice that you bothered to answer so quickly, thanks!. ;>
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How to 'read' capacitors?
