Continue to Site

Welcome to our site!

Electro Tech is an online community (with over 170,000 members) who enjoy talking about and building electronic circuits, projects and gadgets. To participate you need to register. Registration is free. Click here to register now.

  • Welcome to our site! Electro Tech is an online community (with over 170,000 members) who enjoy talking about and building electronic circuits, projects and gadgets. To participate you need to register. Registration is free. Click here to register now.

Capacitor marking

Status
Not open for further replies.

siyom

Member
So i have this 640uF capacitor and its the last one,it's not properly marked or atleast its not marked according to what i'm used to_One lead is shorter than the other and there's a band around the position of that lead.
I know it sounds like a stupid question but always confuse these things and i end up blowing caps this time its my only one and i dont wanna blow it,so how do i connect it?
1) long lead to Vcc short lead to ground
2) short lead to Vcc long lead to ground

Ashamed
 
Simply look in Google Images like I did.
Modern capacitors have a minus sign and arrow on the side of the negative wire. It looks like the negative wire is the short one.
 

Attachments

  • electrolytic capacitor wires.png
    electrolytic capacitor wires.png
    81.5 KB · Views: 197
Connecting it to a 9v battery through a 10K or 100K resistor and monitoring the cap voltage after a few seconds may tell you the correct polarity with almost zero risk of damage.
 
Not always.

Or never. :)

The aluminium cases are coated with epoxy paint on the inside to make sure they do not conduct in any way with the inner workings of the cap.
 
Long lead +, short lead -. Just as beerbelly said.

Also, as AG mentioned, it should have a "-" sign on the negative side of the capacitor case.

Matt
 
Last edited:
Status
Not open for further replies.

Latest threads

New Articles From Microcontroller Tips

Back
Top