Polyester Capacitor Colour-Code Calculator
Capacitor color codes
Large capacitor have the value printed plainly on them, such as 10.uF (Ten Micro Farads) but
smaller disk types along with plastic film types often have just 2 or three numbers on them.
First, most will have three numbers, but sometimes there are just two numbers. These are read as
Pico-Farads. An example: 47 printed on a small disk can be assumed to be 47 Pico-Farads.
Now, what about the three numbers? It is somewhat similar to the
resistor code. The first two are the 1st and 2nd significant digits and the third is a multiplier code.
| |
Color |
Digit
| Multiplier - PicoFarad |
| |
Black
| 0 |
1 |
| |
Brown
| 1 |
10 |
| |
Red
| 2 |
100 |
| |
Orange
| 3 |
1,000 |
| |
Yellow
| 4 |
10,000 |
| |
Green
| 5 |
100,000 |
| |
Blue
| 6 |
|
| |
Purple
| 7 |
|
| |
Grey
| 8 |
.01 |
| |
White
| 9 |
.1 |
Now for an example:
A capacitor marked 334 is 33 with 4 more zeros or 330,000pF which is otherwise referred to as a 0.33 uF capacitor.
There is sometimes a tolerance code given by a single letter. So a 683J is a 68,000 pF with +/-5% tolerance.
|
Letter symbol |
Tolerance of capacitor |
| D |
+/- 0.5 pF |
| F |
+/- 1% |
| G |
+/- 2% |
| H |
+/- 3% |
| J |
+/- 5% |
| K |
+/- 10% |
| M |
+/- 20% |
| P |
+100% ,-0% |
| Z |
+80%, -20% |