Capacitor Units mF uF confusion

[rattler420]

http://www.translatorscafe.com/cafe/uni ... d-%5BF%5D/

i use this site when i start confusin myself. it has helped. has conversions for nearly any unit of measurement also

[Jero]

Usually film caps are listed in uF and ceramic are listed as pF. You see a lot of .001uF film caps (which would make more sense as 1nF), and 3900pF ceramic caps (3.9nf, .0039uF). It's weird how they do that, but it makes a bit of sense when you consider that most ceramic caps are smaller values, and film caps are kinda mid-range.

Either way, once you know how to convert them, it's not a big deal.

This. It can be really hard at first because of all the variances. Kind of like how English, is one of, if not the, hardest language to learn.

Oh yea, here's a reference that helped me a lot...http://www.justradios.com/uFnFpF.html

[eatyourguitar]

For the record Small Bear seems to be the most confusing place to order Caps. The labeling/numbering system he uses makes no sense and is inconsistent.
But I still order from him more times than not.

I ordered 4 transistors and he was like whoa hold on, we cant just sell everyone 4 transistors cause the earth will open up and the transistor fairy will cry. lets save the other two for someone else who is more important but pays the same exact price. if thats how it is, then fix your fucking website or get a working phone for you BUISINESS. if he really doesn't have any transistors left then I'll get them from my supplier in the UK for the same price on a website that works and has a phone number.

[Jero]

I ordered 4 transistors and he was like whoa hold on, we cant just sell everyone 4 transistors cause the earth will open up and the transistor fairy will cry. lets save the other two for someone else who is more important but pays the same exact price. if thats how it is, then fix your fucking website or get a working phone for you BUISINESS. if he really doesn't have any transistors left then I'll get them from my supplier in the UK for the same price on a website that works and has a phone number.

Wow. Haha people are sillllly. I rarely order from smallbear, but have had no problems with them.

[MEC]

For the record Small Bear seems to be the most confusing place to order Caps. The labeling/numbering system he uses makes no sense and is inconsistent.
But I still order from him more times than not.

I ordered 4 transistors and he was like whoa hold on, we cant just sell everyone 4 transistors cause the earth will open up and the transistor fairy will cry. lets save the other two for someone else who is more important but pays the same exact price. if thats how it is, then fix your fucking website or get a working phone for you BUISINESS. if he really doesn't have any transistors left then I'll get them from my supplier in the UK for the same price on a website that works and has a phone number.

Maybe with the competition from Mammoth, Small Bear will tighten up their operation. I hope so, I really do like supporting smaller vendors when possible but in a capitalistic system convenience is as important as cost. The main reason I have used Small Bear instead of Mouser is how complicated Mouser's site is. Mammoth is easy to navigate and cheap too so they will probably get the bulk of my business in the future.

Now let's get this thread back to confusion over caps.

[McSpunckle]

All of the DIY sites have horrible prices for transistors and diodes and such anyways.

I like supporting the smaller guy too, but I don't know how small Mammoth is. They mostly just sell 4Site stuff, and they're located a few blocks from 4site.

But it's run out of a house. Google street view is creepy.

[tuffteef]

i like the mammoth ordering system with all the caps and resistors on like one page and u just update the values and go add to cart but they dont have a huge selection of values yet

small bear ordering system sucks ass and to make it worse for every resistor i added yesterday i had to enter a security pass code and i was ordering sooooooo many things like 50
mouser has everything but they just have TOO much to get lost in

and they all have sucky search functions

[eatyourguitar]

mouser is awesome once you get the hang of it. after you have some orders with them, you can just dig through the previous orders for part numbers.

[tuffteef]

mouser is awesome once you get the hang of it. after you have some orders with them, you can just dig through the previous orders for part numbers.

i was trying to use there import functions for import lists
but it backfired on me

MAMA MIA

[culturejam]

Here's the page I always use to help me keep things straight:
http://www.justradios.com/uFnFpF.html

edit: oops! I see Jero has long beat me to the punch on that one.



As for the 4u7 or 1k5 thing, it's a holdover from hand-drafted schematics. When you are writing, it's easy for the decimal to get covered by another part of a number, so 4.7µF might end up looking like 47µF. So in order to remove any change for ambiguity, the unit becomes the decimal marker. There's no way to mistake 4µ7 for 47µ.