Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Hi. What does the mf mean on capacitors?

mf stands for microFarad. You might also see it written as uF - actually using the greek symbol 'mu' for micro - not really a 'u'. It doesn't end there though. The same value can be expressed different ways. Here are the ways you might see the well known high pass capacitor used in vintage Rics described.

0.0047 uF (in microFarads)
4.7n (in nanoFarads)
4n7 (another variation on nanoFarads)
4700p (in picoFarads)
472 (Capacitor code)

All of these are exactly the same value capacitor. When you go to buy one of these capacitors at your electronics store you'll usually find it labelled something like

472K63
Y5P

472 - the capacitance value
K - Tolerance (+/-10% in this case)
63 - rated voltage (63 volts in this case)
Y - lower temp (-30 C in this case)
5 - upper temp (+85 C in this case)
P - Stability (+/-10% in this case)

good luck......

THanks for the real answer Glen .

This is more info then I could have supplied.