I can't even fathom that 10 people bothered to thumbs-down this video. Your videos are prime, sir. This channel is altogether the single most thorough, coherent, and successful delivery of practical, working information, certainly re: electronics, and perhaps everything else on YT.

Why didn't I get a lecture like this when I was at university? It's just so essential to know all this stuff. Thank you for this.

You have to be careful with the "orange drop" caps, and many of the film caps, as the band no longer tells you which is the outside foil. This can be tested by using your scope. Connect the cap and hold the body between your fingers and see how much voltage shows on the scope. Then reverse the leads and test again. It is often the case the band is incorrectly marked. The lowest "noise" pickup will happen when the ground lead of the scope is on the outside foil. This can be important in high gain audio amps. Also Tantalum caps throw in the monkey wrench by marking the Positive lead with a band vs aluminum caps which mark the negative lead with a band.

Great video! Thanks so much for all of the info. I had no idea the marking band on film capacitors indicated the outer foil plate. I was always worried that some film caps were somehow slightly polarized.

Thank you very much for a very informative video. Your explanation is remarkable and with full details. I really watched the whole video without blinking an eye. Your commentary is excellent, very clear voice, very good accent, and very detailed ingredients and comparisons. Thank you so much. it helped me a lot. I liked your video. Sir can you do a vlog with Motor Start and Motor run capacitors? Thanks.

Thank you very much, the most up-to-point, informative, fantastic mini-lecture.

I enjoy your videos and I tend to suggest them as reference material for both new and senior EEs that work in my group. Excellent stuff.

One way to tell the difference between Polyester and Poplypropylene film capacitors is that PP in general have much higher Q factor. This requires a proper LCR or capacitance meter, though. Common PE caps have typically a Q value of 100 - 200, whereas PP have >1000 or even >10 000, similar to PS caps and Micas. I noticed that cheap CBB (PP) caps that you can buy nowadays on Amazon, Ebay and from China, have the same Q factor as their similarly looking PE counterparts (Q around 200). I don't really know what's up with that. Maybe stick to known brands, especially for higher frequency stuff where Q matters.

Another well researched, thoughtful video, full of practical information. Answers a lot of questions I've had when poking around devices I've torn apart and wondered about.

Fantastic video as usual! There are several Part 2 possibilities if you're so inclined. A deeper dive into the electrical characteristics of capacitors is one. I really appreciate your clear teaching style. What a great service to the community!

Looking forward to play with a bunch of Soviet capacitors soon. Thank you for your videos, you are one of my favorite teachers.

Thank you for producing this comprehensive and well structured overview of capacitors. Wonderful!

It's good to see you back posting instructional videos, sir. I am in system engineering/integration and (honestly) am little more than a glorified technician. I find myself in the company of EEs every day and your videos have helped me sound like I know what I'm talking about. =)

Thank you for posting very informative videos such as this. Your knowledge is amazing. Keep up the good work!

You should merge all the knowledge presented in your videos, mix it with the way you present it and then write a book. This would became the top handbook on electronics and radiotechnics.

First ... I andomly found something form you while searching around for oscilloscope external trigger problem that I had. Then I randomly watched some other video of yours, after that I liked one of your videos, and made me curious "whats this guy actuall posting...." and clicked on channel's name - videos. Ok....now... after seing your list - I subscribed. I will start to watch everything that I like around here, and I want to thank you for your work. Quite amazing.

Always great to see w2aew publishing a new video! Thanks for this primer on capacitors, very helpful stuff!

This was excellent. Thanks! I've been searching UKposts for a good discussion on the types of caps and none that I've seen have covered this in this detail along with use cases.

Thank you very much for such a well made presentation. I learn a lot from your videos. All the best, Paul

This is the sort of information that turns a noob engineer or tech into an advanced one, one of the steps in ultimately earning the title 'senior'. I've been in the business all my life, but I've already watched this twice for small nuggets I've missed.

Absolutely this is the BEST tutorial on capacitors I have ever seen. Very nice work W2AEW.

Nice to see you back making videos Alan. Jim Williams wrote an App Note for LT(#72), which had a subsection on Bypass Caps which is what I would throw into the "must reads" category for anyone doing HF work.

Thanks Alan. With everything I have fixed, I thought I knew just about everything about capacitors. Getting some of the mixed component boxes from Electronic Goldmine has given me a chance to fool around with every type of capacitor you mentioned. Still you found a way (and always find a way) to introduce some new information in these basic component videos. Thanks again!!!

Nice to see you back. You left out the Flux Capacitor?

from knowing nothing bout these things few minutes ago i do now. good job explaining. thanx👍

Thank you for removing a lot of the mystery about the different types of capacitors. Excellent presentation.

Man your videos never cease to amaze me, on a lot of them I will sit there with my notebook and transcribe your note sheets 👍 the way you break down and organize the data really helps me to onboard some of these concepts. Thank you very much for what you do!

Big big big thumbs up!!! You've made some excellent videos, but this one is extremely helpful. It's packed with lots of great information. Can't thank you enough.

Thanks for the video. As an old/new electronics student, it's nice to see these things explained without too much engineering jargon.

Hi, I came across your perfectly shot video about capacitors, you talked about the temperature dependence, but it's a pity that you didn't point out the problem with soldering with polystyrene capacitors, it will permanently change its capacity when the terminals overheat during soldering. At present, it is no longer the case that the mark on the capacitor indicates the outer foil and it is necessary to do a hum test with an oscilloscope to identify it. I have met capacitors marked this way many times and often the outer foil was on the opposite side from the brand. Nice day 🙂Tom

Very good video, thanks. I didn't know about about the band on the film caps until now. Always good to learn something new. I would also recommend anyone who hasn't already done so, to have a good look at one of the manufacturers application notes on tantalum capacitors before designing them into your circuit. There's a lot to learn about rated voltages, temperatures, failure rates, etc.

most comprehensive capacitor tutorial i have seen so far, very nice, thank you !!!

Thank you a lot. Very detail information, with a good voice. First time i see this channel.

Thanks for another informative and interesting video. Your relaxed style makes for easy listening. I liked your use of a meter probe as an improvised pointer at one point!

Alan, another excellent video that I learned much from! Thank you for taking the time to do these videos. Wish they had been around when I was in school!!

Excellent overview, best and most complete I've seen.

Insane amount of respect for all the effort you’ve put in over the years to educate. My only question is where did you learn all of this stuff? For example this video, is this all industry knowledge? Do you browse academic journals in your spare time? Is it just experience and observation from looking at hundreds of capacitor data sheets? I hope to be one day as knowledgable as you are on anything, thanks again.

Perfect summary, excellent by any standard. Thank you for your most valuable time👍.

This is excellent--the best discussion of capacitor types I've seen. Thanks a lot for doing this.

Totally informative and useful. Thank you for a well done and explained video on the most popular and visible caps!

Excellent. I have a box full of salvaged Caps that you have now identified as Mica caps and I can use these for decoupling in my Audio amplifier projects. Many thanks for helping me in identifying them.

Great job again; I love re-learning this stuff in a very concise manner! Bravo

Love these videos, very well and clear presented. espescially like that you show it with test equipment. many others just talk about theory. well done!

Another nice (and useful) video Alan. I found it very informative. It seems I am not the only one who has difficulty identifying the dielectric in the plastic film caps.

Great.....sorely needed Video for beginners.....thumbs up for sure

Bravo, your 2^8 video. Really enjoy your videos and I always learn something.

Nicely done, mon ami! Brought back old memories … and created a few new ones!!

Incredible. I wish you were my EE prof.

You have answered so many questions I've had about capacitors. Thankyou! Two things I want to mention. My company sent a service memo out stating that they reverse polarized a small rectangular electrolytic cap in production. We had to go into the field and replace them. They would fail after about 5 years. The first one I did I had to remove 32 screws to get to the board!!! I recently bought a very, very expensive ceiling fan with a custom led light. When you turn on the light it hums worse than an amplifier that goes to eleven. I assume this is due to the ceramic caps resonating in the audio range used in the DC to DC converter.

Awesome video! Geez... You even had a "old buzzard" bread slicer! You didn't miss anything!

Thank you. Knowledge needs to be shared!

Nice tutorial. Those class 2 ceramics are also frequency dependent. Recently fixed an HF BPF where the designer thought they'd save space by using X7R caps in the resonators instead of NP0. They couldn't figure out why it was not working.

Good video Alan, never too old to learn.

thanks, a very comprehensive introduction

such quality informative video... thanks alot sir

Another really great video! I am a scrounger for mica cap wherever I find them since they lately have become so expensive and hard to source. One current source I found at fairly decent price is the SMD ones from Cornell-Dubilier MC Series. Limited stock has been available at RS components. Used many of the 10pF 1000V 1210 ones with very good results.

Fantastic video I learned a absolute ton about caps!

Thanks, good video, I was confused about the paper caps with the bands when I came across them for the first time when doing a repair on my hp microwave frequency counter (video on my channel) the band threw me a bit!

Thanks Alan, very informative!

Very good review of capacitor types

Very comprehensive - a 'Reference Video' for me!

Great material and presentation

This was a great video! You should do one for inductors too. Thank you

Really wonderful. Very interesting real life ...... I learn from you . Thanks

Excellent video, and very informative. Your use of graph paper reminds me of Forrest Mimms' notebooks.

Excellent overview of capacitor basics. As Vern noted, the band on many modern film caps no longer accurately represents the outer foil. Paul did a very good video on demonstrating this and how to test them. A recommendation for another cap video is on safety and bypass capacitor applications. When restoring old tube equipment I always install modern X1/Y2 rated caps on the mains input.

Very informative and interesting video. Thank you!

All this time and I didn't know about the banding on the film caps. Thanks

A comment to upvote the video. Great work, thank you!

Excellent! Good information. Thanks much.

thank you so much for this video: I took apart an old flat screen tv and wasn't sure how to re-use the capacitors I found on the boards.... :)

Thanks. It gave me more knowledge on capacitors.

Much appreciated, very helpful. Thankyou.

Excellent video thank you.

Great stuff. Love it. Thanks!

Excellent video, learnt alot! Thanks!

excellent video. thanks for the information.

VERY GOOD THANKS .. Didn't know about reverse voltage sensitivity of tantalums !

Thank you very much to share this precious information.

Great Video thanks for that

Excellent as always! Thanks!

I just checked my parts box and you are correct Sir, nothing higher than 10nF and was looking for at least 0.1uF for DC offset decoupling of audio. Oh well I will have to scout out some film caps.

Excellent videos!

Awesome videos. Can you make a playlist with the Back to Basic Series?

Great video.

Fascinating...cheers.

Another very informative video. One of these years I'll know about .001% of what you do.

Great video, thank you

Very informative 👍

Great video, very educational.

I'm a bit late to the video, but... Tantalum capacitors ARE electrolytic capacitors. That's why they are polarized. An electrolytic process maintains the dielectric layer of both the aluminum and tantalum, so you can't reverse the polarity or the dielectric insulation deteriorates and the plates short together. The 2 basic types of electrolytic caps are aluminum and tantalum. 'Non-polarized' electrolytics are simply 2 high voltage aluminum electrolytics (thick dielectric,) that are hooked back to back.

As always, I learned a lot! Thank you very much!

Great video!! How about doing resistor video also. Thanks

Great video thanks

Answered some questions for me. Thanks!

Electrolytics: You didn't mention the really wide tolerance of those things, typically -20%/+80%! Also, older US-made parts typically have the positive lead or terminal indicated, asian-made the negative. You also said down to 1uF, but I have salvaged some parts (out of a VCR?) that gave me a bunch of 0.1uF, 0.22uF, 0.33uF, and 0.47uF, all at 50V. I'm not sure why you would want to use an electrolytic in this range of values, though. Tantalum: In a place I was working at some years ago, another tech installed a tantalum cap the wrong way around. The result when he powered it up was rather explosive! Mica: It's apparently the practice of some who work on older (antique?) gear to try and turn one around to be able to see the dots and read off the value. This is a *bad* idea, as you'll then end up with moisture getting into the part and it failing. Also, there are apparently several different coding systems in use, at least 2 or 3, the early Radio Amateur's Handbook showed a couple of them IIRC. Also, there's some parts found in old gear with the brand name "Micamold" showing on the case. These are for the most part NOT mica capacitors, but actually paper! And should all be replaced with newer film caps. One manufacturer of electronic musical synthesizers had an instrument where there were two boards having rows of 22uF/25V tantalum caps and some associated parts. Tied into this was a slidepot that would let you choose the release time of the note(s) you were playing. Unfortunately with the way the whole circuit was configured when you put that slider all the way to one extreme, those caps could end up with 30V across them. I was always rather surprised to find very few failures in those instruments...

Very helpful, thank you.

Excellent Video

Excellent video!

Amazing video series, I really can't thank you enough. Greetings from Kurdistan my friend