I am trying to figure out how to read the nominal value of this capacitor. When I use a meter it reads 3.4nF. I have several caps that have the format of .00X where X is an integer. Not sure how that decimal point works in there.
Electronic – ceramic capacitance value
capacitorceramic
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The numbers work like a resistor.
The first two numbers are just numbers.
The third number is the number of 0's after. It's in picofarads.
So:
- 103 is 1 0 000 or 10,000pf or 10nF
- 104 is 1 0 0000 or 100,000pf or 100nF
The letter next is the tolerance:
B +/- 0.10pF
C +/- 0.25pF
D +/- 0.5pF
E +/- 0.5%
F +/- 1%
G +/- 2%
H +/- 3%
J +/- 5%
K +/- 10%
M +/- 20%
N +/- 30%
P +100% ,-0%
Z +80%, -20%
Anything after that is usually manufacturer specific.
The only clue I can find might be this: -
It looks like you are seeing a +16% shift in value and X5R is not known for the greatest dielectric so this may be counted as some form of initial aging due to soldering. After all, it started about 8% down and it's gone 8% over. I'd expect X7R dielectric to be better (stabler) and C0G/NP0 to be better again.
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Best Answer
Common capacitances range from 1nF to whole farads for supercapacitors. The standard notation for larger values is like for resistors, but with nanofarads instead of ohms as the base unit.
(all digits before the last) * 10 ^ (last digit) nF
Here, that format would produce a 30 indicating 3*10^0 nF. Instead, they used "fraction of a microfarad" decimal notation:
.003uF = 3nF
It's no more compact, but at least you can tell that it represents a component value, and the format allows higher precision without resorting to negative exponents. Considering the tolerance, it's in agreement with your reading.