Capacitor Code Calculation with chart In this article, I have explained how to calculate the capacitance value from the 3-digit capacitor code. For the ceramic capacitors, a 3-digit code marked on the capacitor indicates their capacitance value.
Ceramic Capacitor Construction
What is Ceramic Capacitor Ceramic capacitors are the fixed-value capacitors where the dielectric is made of ceramic materials. For any ceramic capacitors, there are two or more alternating layers of ceramic and the metal layer acting as the electrodes.
capacitor code chart
chart for capacitor codes with capacitance value in pF and nF
How to calculate capacitor code 104 The most common code uses the first digit, second digit, and multiplier scheme. In this picture, I have shown how to get the capacitance value from the 104 capacitor code.
104 capacitor code calculation
To get the capacitance value first write down the first and second digit.
The third digit indicates the number of zeros you have to write after the
first two-digit.
For code 104, the third digit is 4, so you have to write 0000 (4 zeros)
after the 10 (first two-digit).
So the capacitance value for 104 will be 100000 picofarads or 100 nanofarads
or 0.1 microfarad.
Tolerance Marking Code
capacitor tolerance chart
More Examples:
code 223J and 151K calculation
For some capacitors the capacitance value listed very plainly.
22pF capacitor22pF Ceramic Capacitor
As you can see in the picture for the 22pF the 22K is marked on the
capacitor. (K indicate tolerance is 10%)
More Examples:
capacitor without code
Measuring Capacitance with Multimeter
measure capacitance
You can also use a multimeter to test the capacitance value of capacitors.
Here I am testing the 155J ceramic capacitor. In the multimeter, you can the
capacitance value is 1.5uF.
Or If You Have a Signal Generator When I get a chance!