Understand the color code of a capacitor

In the design of capacitors today, almost all of them have their actual values of capacitance, voltage, or tolerance marked onto their body in form of alphanumeric characters. Today you’ll get to know the color codes of a capacitor in tabular and also the voltage color code of a capacitor.

Capacitor color codes

The color codes of capacitors are marked on their body so that they can be easily characterized and understand by electricians. These color codes indicate the value of capacitance, voltage, and tolerance of the capacitor. When a value of capacitance is marked as a decimal value, the decimal point will not be easily noticed. This will result in a misreading of the actual capacitance value. Instead of letters like p (pico) or n (nano), decimal points are used to identify the position and the weight of the number.

Let take for instance, a capacitor can be marked as, n47 = 0.47nF, 4n7 = 4.7nF or 47n = 47nF and so on. Also, capacitors are sometimes marked with the capital letter K to signify a value of one thousand pico-Farads, so, a capacitor of 100K would be 100 x 1000pF or 100nF. The confusion of the labeled letters, numbers, and decimal points can reduce by using the international color-coding scheme. It was developed many years ago as a simple way of identifying capacitor values and tolerances. It consists of a color band, that is in spectral order, known as the capacitor color code system.

Capacitor color code table

The table below shows the color code of capacitors:

Band Colour	Digit A	Digit B	Multiplier D	Tolerance (T) > 10pf	Tolerance (T) < 10pf	Temperature Coefficient (TC)
Black	0	0	x1	± 20%	± 2.0pF
Brown	1	1	x10	± 1%	± 0.1pF	-33×10^-6
Red	2	2	x100	± 2%	± 0.25pF	-75×10^-6
Orange	3	3	x1,000	± 3%		-150×10^-6
Yellow	4	4	x10,000	± 4%		-220×10^-6
Green	5	5	x100,000	± 5%	± 0.5pF	-330×10^-6
Blue	6	6	x1,000,000			-470×10^-6
Violet	7	7				-750×10^-6
Grey	8	8	x0.01	+80%,-20%
White	9	9	x0.1	± 10%	± 1.0pF
Gold			x0.1	± 5%
Silver			x0.01	± 10%

Capacitor Voltage Color Code Table

Band Colour	Voltage Rating (V)
Band Colour	Type J	Type K	Type L	Type M	Type N
Black	4	100		10	10
Brown	6	200	100	1.6
Red	10	300	250	4	35
Orange	15	400		40
Yellow	20	500	400	6.3	6
Green	25	600		16	15
Blue	35	700	630		20
Violet	50	800
Grey		900		25	25
White	3	1000		2.5	3
Gold		2000
Silver

Capacitor Voltage Reference

Type J – Dipped Tantalum Capacitors.

K – Mica Capacitors.

L – Polyester/Polystyrene Capacitors.

M – Electrolytic 4 Band Capacitors.

N – Electrolytic 3 Band Capacitors.

The use of capacitor color code is given as:

Metalized Polyester Capacitor

Disc & Ceramic Capacitor

However, the capacitor color code system is not present in use. It was employed a long time ago on unpolarized polyester and mica molded capacitors. But there are still many old capacitors around which is why the color code system is still necessary. Nowadays, capacitors such as disk and film types conform to the BS1852 standard and its new replacement, BS EN 60062. The color system has been replaced by a latter or number-coded system.

Normally, the code is of 2 or 3 numbers and an optional tolerance letter code to identify the tolerance. When two number code is used, the value of the capacitor is given in picofarads, for example, 47 = 47pF and 100 = 100pF, etc. For a three later code, it consists of two value digits and a multiplier just like the resistor color codes in the resistors section. Let take for instance, the digits 471 = 47*10 = 470pF. You should know that three-digit codes are often accompanied by an additional tolerance latter code.

Capacitor Tolerance Letter Codes Table

The table below shows the capacitor tolerance latter codes:

	Letter	B	C	D	F	G	J	K	M	Z
Tolerance	C <10pF ±pF	0.1	0.25	0.5	1	2
Tolerance	C >10pF ±%			0.5	1	2	5	10	20	+80 -20

Consider the capacitor below, it is a ceramic disc type that has the code 473J labeled on its body. So, the 4 is the 1^st digit, 7 is the 2^nd digit, and the 3 is the multiplier in pico-Farads, pF, and the letter J is the tolerance. This can be translated to 47pF * 1,000 (3 zero’s) = 47,000 pF or 0.047uF and the J represents tolerance of +/- 5%.

Now you can see using numbers and letters as codes on the body of capacitors makes it easy to determine their value. Their capacitance values are either in pico-Farad’s, Nano-farads, or Micro-farads. All of these international codes are given in the following table and their equivalent capacitance.

Capacitor Letter Codes Table

The table below shows the international codes for pico-Farad’s, Nano-farads, or Micro-farads and their equivalent capacitance.

Picofarad (pF)	Nanofarad (nF)	Microfarad (uF)	Code	Picofarad (pF)	Nanofarad (nF)	Microfarad (uF)	Code
10	0.01	0.00001	100	4700	4.7	0.0047	472
15	0.015	0.000015	150	5000	5.0	0.005	502
22	0.022	0.000022	220	5600	5.6	0.0056	562
33	0.033	0.000033	330	6800	6.8	0.0068	682
47	0.047	0.000047	470	10000	10	0.01	103
100	0.1	0.0001	101	15000	15	0.015	153
120	0.12	0.00012	121	22000	22	0.022	223
130	0.13	0.00013	131	33000	33	0.033	333
150	0.15	0.00015	151	47000	47	0.047	473
180	0.18	0.00018	181	68000	68	0.068	683
220	0.22	0.00022	221	100000	100	0.1	104
330	0.33	0.00033	331	150000	150	0.15	154
470	0.47	0.00047	471	200000	200	0.2	254
560	0.56	0.00056	561	220000	220	0.22	224
680	0.68	0.00068	681	330000	330	0.33	334
750	0.75	0.00075	751	470000	470	0.47	474
820	0.82	0.00082	821	680000	680	0.68	684
1000	1.0	0.001	102	1000000	1000	1.0	105
1500	1.5	0.0015	152	1500000	1500	1.5	155
2000	2.0	0.002	202	2000000	2000	2.0	205
2200	2.2	0.0022	222	2200000	2200	2.2	225
3300	3.3	0.0033	332	3300000	3300	3.3	335

Watch the video below to learn the color code of capacitors:

That is all for this article where the color codes of capacitors have been discussed. I hope you get a lot from the reading, if so, kindly share with other students. Thanks for reading, see you around!

Understanding the color code of a capacitor

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