er.. is pico smaller than micro?

[tambek]

:?  

i wonder if 470pF is like 0.0047mF?

[airhole]

you would have, in order of smallest division:

1fF = 1 femto Farad (10^-15)
1pF = 1 pico Farad (10^-12)
1nF = 1 nano Farad (10^-9)
1uF (or sometimes seen as 1mF) (10^-6)

which means to say that 1uF is 1 000nF or 1 000 000pF
1uF = 1 000 000pF
0.0047uF = 4.7nF
0.0047mF is not 470pF

Bear in mind that the unit m is actually milli, not micro. Micro is denoted by 'u'. However, since there are almost no milliFarad, many use m to denote micro conveniently.

cheers,
george

[zachary vex]

in really old schematics sometimes you'll see mmF as uF.  milli-milli Farads.

[BD13UK]

http://www.diyguitarist.com/Misc/CapConversionChart.htm

[JimRayden]

And russians use "mk" as micro. And their "F" is cyrillic.

Just you'd know.


-----------
Jimbo

[R.G.]

in really old schematics sometimes you'll see mmF as uF. milli-milli Farads.

Possibly so.

However, in many, many more from the middle really old times, mmF was used for micro-micro-Farad, or pico-Farads. Many of them have the notation on them about "micro-micro". I've never personally seen a schemo that used mmF for milli-milli-Farad or micro-Farad, but lots where it was micro-micro-Farad. I would tend to guess pF for mmF first.

But that's just me.

[jmusser]

There's a couple posts on the bottom of page 5 that link to capacitor references, that would be nice to have around. One of them shows nano conversion, which helps when you're builing from European schematics.

[SaBer]

I've always wondered why people don't use AltGr+M for µ. With all this modern technology it _should_ work on everyones screen.

[zachary vex]

in really old schematics sometimes you'll see mmF as uF. milli-milli Farads.

Possibly so.

However, in many, many more from the middle really old times, mmF was used for micro-micro-Farad, or pico-Farads. Many of them have the notation on them about "micro-micro". I've never personally seen a schemo that used mmF for milli-milli-Farad or micro-Farad, but lots where it was micro-micro-Farad. I would tend to guess pF for mmF first.

But that's just me.

well that explains why all those circuits i built when i was 3 sucked tone so badly.  8^)

[zachary vex]

I've always wondered why people don't use AltGr+M for µ. With all this modern technology it _should_ work on everyones screen.

option+M works on a mac...  Âµ

[Peter Snowberg]

For Windows... hold down Alt, type 0181 on the numeric keypad, release the Alt key and you get µ.

I'm still in the habbit of using 'u' instead because there's no question with font coverage and everybody knows what I'm saying if I say 'uF'.