SMD Capacitors

All types of capacitors are generally use for storing charges, we have many types of capacitors which differs on their capacitance, tolerance and sizes.

Long leads or through hole capacitors (the bigger sizes) are quite bulky they can't be used in micro electronics, they can't be soldered onto a smartphones PCBs due to their big size and cylindrical shape.

Engineering physicists, engineers and inventors taught of manufacturing portable devices which could size our palms, bags and can be implanted into humans or animals for scientific research or health benefits.

In this movies you can notice that AI tools, devices, amunitions are all micro electronics (super small) with great speed and flexibility.

Take for example your ear pods or wireless ear piece are extremely small, they contains boards which consists of capacitors and the capacitors used there are surface mounted type.

What are SMD capacitors?

Good to go!  We know from our previous tutorials that SMD means surface mounted devices, examples are LEDs, resistors etc... They are made with surface mounted technology in which electronic components are small and are always soldered on circuit board's surface.

SMD capacitors are stores charges, they are much smaller than other types and are cheaper and easier to manufacture than others to.

They can be either polarised or non polarised, polarised capacitors has negative and positive terminals while non polarised doesn't has a specific terminal.

Polarised SMD capacitors has their negative polarised side marked with white or brown while the other side without a marking implies a positive polarity.

Non-polarised SMD capacitors are not marked at all, they don't have any specific terminal therefore, they can be connected anyhow in a circuit.

How to calculate SMD  capacitor's capacitance value.

Calculating SMD capacitor's capacitance value is quite easy than other types, some relatively thick SMD capacitors can have their  capacitance values printed on them while tiny ones are printed on with simple codes, let's learn how to calculate!

SMD capacitors have three digits printed on them, the first two indicates the significant figure while the third digit is the multiplier.

For example a code of  2

475 is calculated as 47×10^5 = 4700000Pf 

=4.7Mf.

How to test the state of an SMD capacitor.

As an engineer it is important to know how to test whether a capacitor is okay or not.

Simply take your   multimeter and switch its knob to 2000k ohms or 2 mega ohms if the capacitor is a polarised type connect the negative probe of the meter to the negative pole of the capacitor and other probe to the capacitor's other positive probe.

If the display digits increases or reach the highest it can measure (it will display 1) it is working and fine but if it shows little numbers and decreases rapidly or slowly, it needs replacement.