1nF cap?

[tee_2]

Hi all, I’m new to all this stuff and have been working through some tutorials that I found on the web and came across needing a 10, and 100 nF capacitors. I haven’t been able to find them anywhere. What are nF caps or could it be a misprint? Is there a substitute?

Where is a good, one place has all to buy on the web? That is cheap!

Thanks

Todd

 

[jrz126]

a 1 nanofarad cap is .000000001 Farads (10^-9), in pico-farads (10^-12), a 1 nF cap would be 1000 pF. and in micro-farads (10^-6) it would be .001uF

It's just the value of the cap, nothing special about it. So if you cant find the value that you need, you may have to convert it.

Also, if you are ordering online, Digikey.com has excellent online shopping (very easy to find what you are looking for).

 

[H /\ E K T P O N]

Capacitors

in parallel, total capacitance C = C1 + C2 + C3 + ....

in series, total capacitance 1/C = 1/C1 + 1/C2 + 1/C3 + ....

In this way, you can easily get the values you want, when you cannot find them.

 

[zachtheterrible]

0.000001uF 0.001nF 1pF
0.00001uF 0.01nF 10pF
0.0001uF 0.1nF 100pF
0.001uF 1nF 1000pF
0.01uF 10nF 10000pF
0.1uF 100nF 100000pF
1uF 1000nF 1000000pF
10uF 10000nF 10000000pF
100uF 100000nF 100000000pF


1uF=1x10^-6F 1nF=1x10^-9F 1pF=1x10^-12F

This little table should help. nF is used so that a dot doesn't have to be put into the capacitor value. When circuits get copied, etc. sometime the dot can get lost, and then the value of the cap gets lost.

 

[Dean Huster]

For some reason, here in the U.S., we've managed to accept nano and milli as well as pico and micro for every other unit of measurement in electronics except for capacitor. Why? Here, all we use are microfarads and picofarads. Across the pond, they use nanofarads and millifarads, which is only right. Get used to the differences and go ahead and get comfortable with nanofarads and millifarads. I don't see us backward folks changing anytime soon.

Dean

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

For some reason, here in the U.S., we've managed to accept nano and milli as well as pico and micro for every other unit of measurement in electronics except for capacitor. Why? Here, all we use are microfarads and picofarads. Across the pond, they use nanofarads and millifarads, which is only right. Get used to the differences and go ahead and get comfortable with nanofarads and millifarads. I don't see us backward folks changing anytime soon.

I can't say we ever use millifarads over here!, basically it's not a very useful prefix for capacitors - likewise nano only ever seems to be applied to capacitors, and not anything else (although I supose it could be used for inductors as well?).

 

[tee_2]

Thanks everyone for the quick replys. Do I have a lot to learn. :shock:

Todd

 

[Dean Huster]

Nigel, I've seen mF used several times, mostly in power supply circuits where there might be a 1mF (vs. 1000µF) or 4.7mF (vs. 4700µF) filter caps. And I appreciate the use of millifarads. It shows consistency in the system! When I worked for Tektronix back in the 1970s and 1980s, I found that they were consistent in the inconsistent electronics world of capacitors in that they defaulted to using whole numbers by listing capacitors as 5600pF rather than 0.0056µF. I would assume that by doing that, it reduced the error of losing zeros and decimal points in the printing and reading process. However, they did NOT take it all the way to using 47,000pf vs 0.047µF. 5.6nF and 47nF sure is easier on the eyes, isn't it?

Dean