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Distinguishing ceramic from film capacitors electrically?

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T3sl4co1l:
I'm assuming the context is THT, since OP mentioned "plastic cased", which I'm guessing are dipped since the boxed are almost always film (not sure right now, if I've seen boxed ceramic?)...

Chips are easy, films are shiny on top, while ceramics are ceramic of whatever white to drab color; neither is almost ever marked.  (Have rarely seen ceramic chips with markings; I've seen film chips at all about as often as marked ceramics...)

Anyway, here's a variety of markings from my bin --



Top: Vishay/BC 1nF (50V?) C0G, no identifier, good luck figuring it out if you salvaged it. :P

Bottom, left to right: EPCOS/TDK 22p, generic 10p C0G, someone (possibly Xicon, I forget) 33p 50V C0G ("NP0" being the old designation, still seen frequently today), and 180p 63V TDK.

I don't know if the colored top is actually standard or listed anywhere, but I've seen it often enough to suspect it's what they mean. :)

Tim

MagicSmoker:

--- Quote from: T3sl4co1l on December 10, 2019, 07:21:10 pm ---I'm assuming the context is THT, since OP mentioned "plastic cased", which I'm guessing are dipped since the boxed are almost always film (not sure right now, if I've seen boxed ceramic?)...
--- End quote ---

There are, indeed, boxed MLCC. The infamous CK05 series comes to mind. E.g. - like this little doodad: https://www.newark.com/kemet/ck05bx104k/ceramic-capacitor-0-1uf-50v-x7r/dp/87F4662

***

To the OP: polyester film and the X7R ceramic dielectric are roughly comparable, while polypropylene film is quite similar to the NP0 ceramic dielectric (as far as AC losses and ESR go). NP0 has a much higher usable temperature, however (125C vs. 85C).

schmitt trigger:
It would help if you posted some photos.

But by your very brief description, they likely are stacked film types.

One thing that ceramic capacitors have, specially the MLCC types, is that they have very high volumetric efficiencies. For instance, one can get a 1uF, 10V device in a 0201 SMT package!

David Hess:
In a decoupling application I would not worry too much about the difference.  Film capacitors work just as well in decoupling applications.  Ceramic capacitors are less expensive now but in the past that was not always the case.

T3sl4co1l:
Oh yeah, of course, I've got a bunch of M39014 style ceramics. :)

Tim

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