Capacitor Codes

Capacitor Codes

Some capacitors, especially polarized electrolytic ones have value printed on it. E.g. 100 µF 25 volt. But some especially non polarized smaller capacitors have number code printed on it. If a capacitor is marked 105 it means 10+5 zeros= 10 + 00000=1000000 pF=1000 nF = 1 µF. Values are always in PicoFarads(pF). The letters added to the value is the tolerance and in some cases a second letter is the temperature coefficient mostly only used in military applications, or industrial components.

Capacitor value codes

3rd Digit	Multiplier	Letter	Tolerance
0	1	D	0.5 pF
1	10	F	1%
2	100	G	2%
3	1000	H	3%
4	10000	J	5%
5	100000	K	10%
6,7	Not Used	M	20%
8	.01	P	+100, -0%
9	.1	Z	+80, -20%

Examples

102 = 10+00 =100 pF=1nf=0.001 µF

472=47+00=4700 pF=4.7nF=0.0047 µF

Conversion from µF to nF to pF

1 µF = 1000 nF = 1000000 pF