I'm testing a large capacitor in a old wall wart power brick (simple transformer with 4 individual diodes and a large capacitor) and am getting confused on how to read the measurement with my BM786.
The capacitor in question is marked as 16V 3300 uF. When I test the capacitance with the meter, at first the meter displays "disc", but if I remove a test lead and test it again right away, I get 3.51 mF. Great, I do get a consistant value even after shorting out the capacitor to retest it multiple times.
For the life of me though, in all my searches, I cannot find what "mF" represents, except that it's a old term that is now replaced with "uF". But the BM786 has a "uF" symbol (and pF), so why would it display 3.51 mF, instead of 3.51 uF? Why would it have 2 different symbols that represent the same value?
It's obvious on the BM786 that mF does not equal uF, but I cannot figure out what it's supposed to represent or convert to.
Can someone clue me in on what each symbol, mF nF and pF, actually represent on the BM786?
Just noticed on my old BK Precision 2709B it's also showing the same symbols. And a cheap-o LCR meter read 188uF on the 200uF scale. I'm still confused.