{"id":2288,"date":"2015-11-27T18:45:38","date_gmt":"2015-11-28T02:45:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pididu.com\/wordpress\/?p=2288"},"modified":"2017-10-16T14:09:10","modified_gmt":"2017-10-16T22:09:10","slug":"high-value-ceramic-chip-capacitors-short-on-capacitance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/pididu.com\/wordpress\/blog\/high-value-ceramic-chip-capacitors-short-on-capacitance\/","title":{"rendered":"High Value Ceramic Chip Capacitors Out of Spec"},"content":{"rendered":"

When I was a teen, I would never have considered a ceramic capacitor when I needed, say, 5\u00a0\u03bcF or more. \u00a0That automatically meant using an electrolytic capacitor, or in some cases, solid Tantalum. \u00a0But today, I can buy surface mount capacitors in 4.7 \u03bcF, 10 \u03bcF, even 100\u03bcF.<\/p>\n

But wait. \u00a0When I actually got those capacitors in hand and measured them, they seemed to be lower in value than marked. \u00a0A capacitor has tolerance; I get that. \u00a0But if it has a -20% tolerance specified, I expect it to be at least 80% of the marked value. \u00a0The ones I got were way off<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\"10<\/a>
Marked value: 10 uF. Measured: 7.09 uF. \u00a0Brand new from Mouser.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"22<\/a>
These were also brand new. \u00a0Marked value: 22 uF. Measured: 11.76 uF. It seems that the only thing sure is that a 22 uF cap will have more capacity than something marked at the next lower value in the series, 10 uF in this case.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Marked<\/a>
Marked value: 22 uF. Measured: 9.36 uF. \u00a0I got these at a flea market – maybe they were previously rejected as out-of-spec?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"ok<\/a>
Marked value: 10 uF. Measured: 9.05 uF. \u00a0Okay, within 10%.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"ok<\/a>
Marked value: 2.2 uF. Measured: 2.03 uF. \u00a0No problem here, but this was a relatively small value capacitor. I noticed in general that capacitors of 1 uF and less, even bypass caps, seemed to accurate.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"100<\/a>
I got this whole strip of caps at a flea market fora dollar. 100 uF in a 1210 package! \u00a0They measured only 58\u00a0uF, unfortunately.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I’m wondering if there is some kind of scandal about to break here, as the actual capacitances are so low in some cases. It’s like buying a dozen eggs in the market, and finding out that there are only 7 in the box. Perhaps the capacitors are marked in terms of “equivalent filtering capacity” compared to aluminum electrolytics? It is somewhat true that a lower value ceramic can often be used, due to lower equivalent series resistance (ESR). But like audio amplifier power ratings or battery mAH ratings, I still see it as basically lying. Heaven forbid someone needs to use one of these as a timing element.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Component<\/th>\nSPEC<\/th>\nReading<\/th>\nVERDICT<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n
\u00a0Murata\u00a0GRM31CR61H106KA12L<\/td>\n\u00a010 \u03bcF X5R 10%, 50V, 1206<\/td>\n\u00a07.09 \u03bcF<\/td>\n\u00a0FAIL<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\u00a0TDK C3225Y5V1C226Z<\/td>\n\u00a022 \u03bcF Y5V -20+80%, 16V, 1210<\/td>\n\u00a011.76 \u03bcF<\/td>\n\u00a0FAIL<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\u00a0Taiyo Yuden LMK235F226ZN-T<\/td>\n\u00a022\u00a0\u03bcF, 10V, 1210<\/td>\n\u00a09.36\u00a0\u03bcF<\/td>\n\u00a0FAIL<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\u00a0TDK C3225X5R1A106K<\/td>\n\u00a010 \u03bcF X5R 10%, 10V, 1210<\/td>\n\u00a09.05\u00a0\u03bcF<\/td>\n\u00a0PASS<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\u00a0TDK C3216X5R1E225K<\/td>\n\u00a02.2 \u03bcF X5R 10%, 25V, 1206<\/td>\n\u00a02.03\u00a0\u03bcF<\/td>\n\u00a0PASS<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\u00a0Unknown<\/td>\n\u00a0100 \u03bcF\u00a0X5R, 6.3V, 1210<\/td>\n\u00a058\u00a0\u03bcF<\/td>\n\u00a0FAIL<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I was a teen, I would never have considered a ceramic capacitor when I needed, say, 5\u00a0\u03bcF or more. \u00a0That automatically meant using an electrolytic capacitor, or in some cases, solid Tantalum. \u00a0But today, I can buy surface mount capacitors in 4.7 \u03bcF, 10 \u03bcF, even 100\u03bcF. But wait. \u00a0When I actually got those … Continue reading High Value Ceramic Chip Capacitors Out of Spec<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[204],"tags":[185,192,191,188,184,190,189,186,187],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/pididu.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2288"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/pididu.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/pididu.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pididu.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pididu.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2288"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/pididu.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2288\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/pididu.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pididu.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pididu.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}