I've got a schematic that originated in Brazil that generally uses European symbols rather then US. But some values for capacitors are confusing me.
There are several that are marked 100n and so forth, which I take as being 100 nF; but there are also a bunch of electrolytics marked with "mk", such as 1mk and 10mk. Is 'mk" the same as µF? Just want to make sure. Where does mk come from? I'm guessing the "m" probably stands for micro, but what about the "k"?
The markings are not very consistent, as they use n by itself instead of nF; but smaller values are shown as pf.
Best Answer
Some languages do not have the
µ
letter on the default keyboard and usemk
as abbreviation formikro
.1µF
and10µF
are typical sizes for "big" blocking caps.Using just
n
for nanofarad andpF
for picofarad provides a stronger optical difference between these units. Most caps in a digital circuit are expected to be inn
range (small blocking caps), you want the shortest form here with just one letter.