Ceramic Disc Capacitor Codes

The capacitor on the left is of a ceramic disc type capacitor that has the code 473j printed onto its body.

Ceramic disc capacitor codes.

For example if a ceramic capacitor has a code 5 and other has 47 their respective capacitance values are 5 pf and 47 pf. Ceramic disc capacitors have two to three digits code printed on them. Multiplier table ceramic number multiply by additional of zeros 0 none 0 1 10 1. For small values the letter r is used to denote a decimal point e g.

The first two numbers describe the value of the capacitor and the third number is the number of zeros in the multiplier. This code indicates what the capacitance of the capacitor is. The early style of the ceramic disc capacitor could be more cheaply produced than the common ceramic tube capacitors in the 1950s and 1970s. They are very easy to decode to find the value.

Unlike resistors capacitors use a wide variety of codes to describe their characteristics. 47pf 1 000 3 zero s 47 000 pf 47nf or 0 047uf the j indicates a tolerance of 5. Ceramic disc capacitors like the one on the left are printed with a code. Ceramic capacitor codes how to read a ceramic capacitor with numeric coding.

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 first two significant digits represent the first two digits of the actual value which is 47. Encoding for ceramic capacitors ceramic capacitors encoding consists 1 3 digits. The third digit is the multiplier which is 1000.

Physically small capacitors are especially difficult to read due to the limited space available for printing. Ceramic disc capacitor code label will normally consist of three numbers followed by a letter. When the first two numbers are multiplied with the multiplier the resulting value is the value of the capacitor in picofarads. The value of the capacitor is denoted in picofarads for ceramic film and tantalum capacitors but for aluminium electrolytic capacitors the value is denoted in microfarads.

0r5 is 0 5 1r0 is 1 0 and 2r2 is 2 2 etc. With smaller disc type capacitors tolerance is most often indicated by a single letter code which is sometimes placed by itself on the body of the capacitor or after the three digit mark such as 104z the letter z donates a tolerance of 80 percent and 20 percent. If the capacitor code consist only 1 or 2 digits it is simply their capacitance value in picofarads pf. The example capacitor has a 3 digit number printed on it 103.