jb Capacitor Standard Values

In many applications capacitors need not be specified to tight tolerance (they often need only to exceed a certain value); this is particularly true for electrolytic capacitors, which are often used for filtering and bypassing. Consequently capacitors, particularly electrolytics, often have a tolerance range of ±20% and need to be available only within E6 (or E3) series values.

Series Values
E3 1.0       2.2       4.7      
E6 1.0   1.5   2.2   3.3   4.7   6.8  
E12 1.0 1.2 1.5 1.8 2.2 2.7 3.3 3.9 4.7 5.6 6.8 8.2

Other types of capacitors, e.g. ceramic, can be manufactured to tighter tolerances and are available in E12 or closer-spaced values (e.g. 47 pF, 56 pF, 68 pF).

With the introduction of S.I. submultiples of micro, nano, and pico, it became customary to specify capacitors with a number between 1 and 999 followed by farad, microfarad, nanofarad, or picofarad. While supercapacitors of up to 5,000 farads are produced, it is not usual to use kilofarad or millifarad.

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