I just bought a really cheap kit of ceramic disc capacitors. A 100 nF capacitor measured 60 nF. A tolerance of 40% is a bit low even for low value parts. What is the norm for these kind of capacitors? You will note that the tolerances are not listed on the kit. As it turned out it was a bad deal. It was missing several values. In theory I'm going to get my money back from Amazon. So far nothing yet. I count gift cards as money as I buy a lot of things from Amazon.

 

The worst tolerance should be +80%/-20%.

 

The worst tolerance should be +80%/-20%.

At 5 KV perhaps.I have made, capacitors on the fly with beer bottles and sanitary napkins. Here in California @ Coachella music festival. And no "the band meatloaf" was not on stage. And I am not a roadie!

 

There are two main types of ceramic capacitor. The first sort is NP0 or G0G dielectric. They are close tolerance, low loss, very linear and good for audio. The rest aren't - the tolerances are probably as bad as +80%/-20% as @dl324 said,
https://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/mlccs-multilayer-ceramic-capacitors/6995134
they are horribly piezoelectric, so much so that they can get into mechanical resonances and blow up, and they are dreadful for audio. They are only really fit for decoupling.

I don't suppose Amazon claimed that you would get 60nF - in which case you have extra values to make up for the missing values.

 

At 5 KV perhaps.

From CDE:

 

Hello,

The following page from the capsite will also give a lot of info:
http://www.iequalscdvdt.com/Ceramic.html

Bertus

 

The following page from the capsite will also give a lot of info

I always thought the loosest tolerance was +80/-20% and I've seen it referenced in many places. It made sense because more was usually better than less. It seems I had that backwards.

 

I always thought the loosest tolerance was +80/-20% and I've seen it referenced in many places. It made sense because more was usually better than less. It seems I had that backwards.

No- you were correct. The ones on sale at RS are +80/-20%.
https://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/mlccs-multilayer-ceramic-capacitors/6995134

I find it hard to believe that there could be a +22%/-82% tolerance band. That means that if you ordered 100nF they could quite happily give you 18nF, but the most you could get is 122nF. It doesn't make sense.

 

I think you are talking about 2 different things. Tolerance, and temperature dependence.

Bob

 

After making a storage box out of cardboard, I got a refund from Amazon because it was missing several items. Then I turned around and ordered a different kit it was slightly more expensive I think I will be happier with it. Slowly but surely my stock of parts is growing. It is getting harder to keep it under the bed.