Most capacitors actually have the numeric values stamped on them, however, some are color coded as resistors are. You may wish to check out our Resistor Color Code Table And Calculator. The capacitor's first and second bands are the significant number bands, the third is the multiplier, followed by the percentage tolerance band and the voltage. Codes for date of manufacture (to IEC ) Codeforyear Codeformonth Year Code letter Year Code letter Month Code numeral Month Code numeral/letter 2012 C 2018 K January 1 July 7 2013 D 2019 L February 2 August 8 2014 E 2020 M March 3 September 9 2015 F 2021 N April 4 October O 2016 H 2022 P May 5 November N 2017 J 2023 R June 6 December. The chart on the right shows a marking system that identifies film capacitors as to foil or metallized and the common dielectrics. It was first defined in DIN 41379, now obsolete. New codes have been unofficially added over the years however.
- Surface Mount Capacitor Code Chart
- Capacitor Code Chart Pdf
- Capacitor Code Charts
- Smd Capacitor Code Chart
Introduction
You never know when you'll need a capacitor. Sometimes you need a little more power supply decoupling, an output coupling cap, or careful tuning of a filter circuit -- all applications where capacitors are critical. The SparkFun Capacitor Kit contains a wide range of capacitor values, so you will always have them on hand when you need them.
SparkFun Capacitor Kit
KIT-13698This tutorial will help you identify the contents of your kit, and show you a couple tricks to expand the range of values even further.
Suggested Reading
- If you want more general information about capacitors, you can start with our Capacitor Tutorial.
- Capacitor values are expressed using metric prefixes
- The electrolytic capacitors in this kit are polarized.
Kit Contents
The Capacitor Kit contains caps on decade intervals from 10 picofarads to 1000 microfarads.
Capacitor Kit Contents | ||||
Value | Type | Marking | Quantity | Voltage Rating |
10pF | Ceramic | 100 | 10 | 50V |
22pF | Ceramic | 220 | 10 | 50V |
100pF | Ceramic | 101 | 10 | 50V |
1nF | Ceramic | 102 | 10 | 50V |
10nF | Ceramic | 103 | 10 | 50V |
100nF | Ceramic | 104 | 25 | 50V |
1 µF | Electrolytic | 1µF/50V | 10 | 50V |
10 µF | Electrolytic | 10µF/25V | 10 | 25V |
100 µF | Electrolytic | 100µF/25V | 10 | 25V |
1000 µF | Electrolytic | 1000µF/25V | 10 | 25V |
There are ten pieces of most values, but 25 pieces of 100 nanofarads, which are commonly used for local supply decoupling near ICs. There are also ten pieces of 22pf, which are frequently used as load capacitors when building crystal oscillators.
Capacitor Identification
Capacitor Marking Review
Let's face it, a Farad is a lot of capacitance. Capacitor values are usually tiny -- often in the millionths or billionths of a Farad. To express those small values succinctly, we use the metric system. The following prefixes are the modern convention*.
Capacitor Metric Prefixes | |||
Prefix | SI Notation | Fraction | Symbol |
Microfarad | 10-6 | One Millionth | µf |
Nanofarad | 10-9 | One Billionth | nf |
Picofarad | 10-12 | One Trillionth | pf |
Mu (µ), the symbol for micro, can be an issue for typesetting. It's hard to type, and not every font has the symbol. At SparkFun, we often use the letter 'u' as a substitute. Sometimes the letter 'm' is used instead, resuiting in micro-Farads being abbreviated as 'mF.' Technically, there's also a 'milli-Farad,' but in practice, milli-Farads are almost never seen, with thousands of micro-Farads being much more common.
Time and geography have an influence as well. In older North American designs, nano-Farads are uncommon, with BOMs and schematics instead using only µF and pF, padded with leading or trailing zeros.
The Ceramic Caps
The smaller values in the kit are 50V rated ceramic capacitors. These are small, nonpolarized caps with yellow blob for their body.
The value is printed on each in a three-digit code. This code is similar to the color code on resistors, but uses digits instead of colors. The first two digits are the two most significant digits of the value, and the third digit is the exponent on the 10. The value is expressed in terms of pico-Farads.
To decode the value, take the first two digits, then follow them with the number of zeros indicated by the third digit. 104 becomes '10' followed by '0000,' or 100000 pF, more succinctly written as 100 nF.
Electrolytic Caps
Electrolytic caps have larger, cylindrical bodies that look like small soda cans. They typically offer higher capacitance than ceramic caps. Unlike ceramics, they are polarized.
The markings on the 'lytic caps are easily legible -- the value and units are printed right on the body.
The value is followed with the voltage rating, indicating the maximum DC potential that the cap can withstand without damage. In this kit, the 1 µF is rated to 50V, the others are rated to 25V.
Polarized
Surface Mount Capacitor Code Chart
The higher capacitance of electrolytics comes with a somewhat tedious detail -- they are polarized. The positive leg needs to be kept at a higher DC potential than the negative leg. If they're installed backwards, they're prone to explode.
Thankfully, the leads are clearly marked.
There are two polarity indicators on an electrolytic cap:
- The stripe painted on the body usually denotes the negative lead.
- The positive lead is longer than the negative lead.
Clever Applications
Crystal Oscillators
The kit specifically includes 22 pF ceramic caps for building cyrstal oscillators, commonly required by microcontroller ICs.
Value Combinations
This kit offers a wide array of values, but the decade-by-decade selection leaves some gaps in between. There are a couple of tricks that can be used to bridge those gaps, by combining caps in series or parallel.
Parallel
The values of capacitors wired in parallel are added together. You can gang up smaller caps to effectively form a larger cap.
Series
Capacitor Code Chart Pdf
Capacitors wired in series combine in an inverse sum -- take the reciprocal of each value, and add them together, then take the reciprocal of that sum.
Restated as a simplified guidelines while you're at your workbench: Northgard - svardilfari, clan of the horse for mac.
- If you want half the value of a cap in the kit, put two of that value in series.
- If you want double the value of a cap in the kit, put two in parallel.
Capacitor Code Charts
Resources and Going Further
Suggested Reading
- If you want more general information about capacitors, you can start with our Capacitor Tutorial.
- Capacitor values are expressed using metric prefixes
- The electrolytic capacitors in this kit are polarized.
Kit Contents
The Capacitor Kit contains caps on decade intervals from 10 picofarads to 1000 microfarads.
Capacitor Kit Contents | ||||
Value | Type | Marking | Quantity | Voltage Rating |
10pF | Ceramic | 100 | 10 | 50V |
22pF | Ceramic | 220 | 10 | 50V |
100pF | Ceramic | 101 | 10 | 50V |
1nF | Ceramic | 102 | 10 | 50V |
10nF | Ceramic | 103 | 10 | 50V |
100nF | Ceramic | 104 | 25 | 50V |
1 µF | Electrolytic | 1µF/50V | 10 | 50V |
10 µF | Electrolytic | 10µF/25V | 10 | 25V |
100 µF | Electrolytic | 100µF/25V | 10 | 25V |
1000 µF | Electrolytic | 1000µF/25V | 10 | 25V |
There are ten pieces of most values, but 25 pieces of 100 nanofarads, which are commonly used for local supply decoupling near ICs. There are also ten pieces of 22pf, which are frequently used as load capacitors when building crystal oscillators.
Capacitor Identification
Capacitor Marking Review
Let's face it, a Farad is a lot of capacitance. Capacitor values are usually tiny -- often in the millionths or billionths of a Farad. To express those small values succinctly, we use the metric system. The following prefixes are the modern convention*.
Capacitor Metric Prefixes | |||
Prefix | SI Notation | Fraction | Symbol |
Microfarad | 10-6 | One Millionth | µf |
Nanofarad | 10-9 | One Billionth | nf |
Picofarad | 10-12 | One Trillionth | pf |
Mu (µ), the symbol for micro, can be an issue for typesetting. It's hard to type, and not every font has the symbol. At SparkFun, we often use the letter 'u' as a substitute. Sometimes the letter 'm' is used instead, resuiting in micro-Farads being abbreviated as 'mF.' Technically, there's also a 'milli-Farad,' but in practice, milli-Farads are almost never seen, with thousands of micro-Farads being much more common.
Time and geography have an influence as well. In older North American designs, nano-Farads are uncommon, with BOMs and schematics instead using only µF and pF, padded with leading or trailing zeros.
The Ceramic Caps
The smaller values in the kit are 50V rated ceramic capacitors. These are small, nonpolarized caps with yellow blob for their body.
The value is printed on each in a three-digit code. This code is similar to the color code on resistors, but uses digits instead of colors. The first two digits are the two most significant digits of the value, and the third digit is the exponent on the 10. The value is expressed in terms of pico-Farads.
To decode the value, take the first two digits, then follow them with the number of zeros indicated by the third digit. 104 becomes '10' followed by '0000,' or 100000 pF, more succinctly written as 100 nF.
Electrolytic Caps
Electrolytic caps have larger, cylindrical bodies that look like small soda cans. They typically offer higher capacitance than ceramic caps. Unlike ceramics, they are polarized.
The markings on the 'lytic caps are easily legible -- the value and units are printed right on the body.
The value is followed with the voltage rating, indicating the maximum DC potential that the cap can withstand without damage. In this kit, the 1 µF is rated to 50V, the others are rated to 25V.
Polarized
Surface Mount Capacitor Code Chart
The higher capacitance of electrolytics comes with a somewhat tedious detail -- they are polarized. The positive leg needs to be kept at a higher DC potential than the negative leg. If they're installed backwards, they're prone to explode.
Thankfully, the leads are clearly marked.
There are two polarity indicators on an electrolytic cap:
- The stripe painted on the body usually denotes the negative lead.
- The positive lead is longer than the negative lead.
Clever Applications
Crystal Oscillators
The kit specifically includes 22 pF ceramic caps for building cyrstal oscillators, commonly required by microcontroller ICs.
Value Combinations
This kit offers a wide array of values, but the decade-by-decade selection leaves some gaps in between. There are a couple of tricks that can be used to bridge those gaps, by combining caps in series or parallel.
Parallel
The values of capacitors wired in parallel are added together. You can gang up smaller caps to effectively form a larger cap.
Series
Capacitor Code Chart Pdf
Capacitors wired in series combine in an inverse sum -- take the reciprocal of each value, and add them together, then take the reciprocal of that sum.
Restated as a simplified guidelines while you're at your workbench: Northgard - svardilfari, clan of the horse for mac.
- If you want half the value of a cap in the kit, put two of that value in series.
- If you want double the value of a cap in the kit, put two in parallel.
Capacitor Code Charts
Resources and Going Further
- Our Resistor Kit pairs nicely with the Capacitor Kit.
- If you want to measure capacitor values, you can build the Capacitance Meter Kit.
- Harry Bissell's Cap FAQ is a very detailed guide to selecting capacitors.
- Our engineer Shawn gives a video demonstration of polarity and voltage ratings by Exploding Capacitors.
Smd Capacitor Code Chart
First, let's get our nomenclature straight. 1 mF (milli) = 10-3 farad, 1 uF (micro) = 10-6 farad. 1 nF (nano) = 10-9 farad, 1 pF (pico) = 10-12 farad. 1 pF = 10-3 nF =10-6 uF. Nano is rather less common than micro and pico, but it still shows up. 'Femto farad ' (fF) is used for things like RAM chip storage capacitors, but there are no discrete capacitors in that size range.
Well, that's really not true. Microwave capacitors go down to at least 50 fF, but are called 0.05 pF.
It would be nice if there was more consistency to capacitor markings. If the manufacturer has lots of room (like on big electrolytics) they will usually print everything they can; value, voltage rating, temperature rating, series, even country of manufacture. However, the smaller the part gets, the less information you get until, on the smallest parts there may be nothing at all. On small through-hole ceramics, a two-number-plus-exponent system is often (but not always) used. This, like most marking systems, is based on the picofarad, the lowest common denominator of capacitance. 470 may be 47 (47 x 100) or 470 pF but 471 is almost certainly 470 (47 x 101). 473 will probably be 0.0047. However, 479 will probably mean 4.7 (47 x 10 -1). Values below 10 pF may use 'R' for a decimal point, 4R7 = 4.7 pF for example. With luck, you might also find the material (C0G, X7R, etc.) and voltage rating. The tolerance may be next to the value. Table 5 shows the EIA tolerance codes for ceramic capacitors. Once again, don't expect to find all possible combinations of values, dielectrics, and tolerances. The tighter tolerances mostly apply to small C0G capacitors and the looser tolerances to larger Class 2-4 ceramics.
For example, if you see .047K, the value is .047 uF 10%.
Acronyms:
RMA: Radio Manufacture's Association. 1924 to 1953.
RETMA: Radio Electronics Television Manufacturers' Association. 1953 to 1957.
EIA: Electronic Industries Alliance. 1957 to 2011. Its various activities were take over by about a half dozen other organizations.
IEC: International Electrotechnical Commission, iec.org, made up from many national standards organizations.
JIS:Japanese Industrial Standards Committee
Standards:
American: EIA RS-19
European: IEC-60384
Japanese: JIS C5101