capacitor tolerances . get out your multimeters

[v4lve lover]

hi . i was thinking what manufacturer on capacitors would make the best products . so i thought lets measure that . im taking measurement of some Siemens caps now .

firstly im using a pretty cheap multimeter . and its probably accurate up to 0.5%
secondly . the caps im measuring are old production . i guess they are up to 15 years old .

im measuring Siemens orange label 10uf 35 volt im taking ten samples randomly . they have been stored in a dry room . not very temp stable

number value value swing .
1 9.82 1.8%
2 9.90 1.0%
3 9.97 0.3
4 10.44 4.4
5 10.55 5.5
6 10.77 7.7
7 9.80 2.0
8 10.80 8.0
9 9.80 2.0
10 10.60 6.0


average 10.245 3.87%

not very bad for some old capacitors why have lain in a barn for some time .

im gonna measure some Chinese in a minute .

[v4lve lover]

ahh this is horrible .

im measuring Chinese now . and they are all way off . this is a fresh batch from 2010

they seem to be off 12% for each one that i test .

[indianajo]

I wish dealers would list the country of origin on the order page, not just the packaging material after you receive it. Even if the quality is assured by the corporations whose name is on the product, some countries trade evenly with mine, some don't. Siemens sources some high quality motor drives from C****, but I imagine they do more extermal auditing than that milk company did.