04/07/2019 A Simple Way To Test Capacitors.

A Simple Way to Test

Capacitors.
I wish I had a dollar for every time I have heard or read
"I tested the capacitors and they all test good but it still
doesn't work." The person doing the speaking or writing
had used a modern capacitor tester which only puts
about 3 volts across the capacitor. That may be fine for
caps used in transistor circuits but not for those used in
tube circuits. The voltages in tube circuits can be as
high as 600 volts and rarely are less than 100 volts. To
perform a valid test you must place a significant voltage
across the cap. After giving some preliminary
information a method will be provided for making valid
tests on capacitors.

Types of Capacitors.
There are two basic kinds of capacitors, electrolytic and
nonelectrolytic. Electrolytic capacitors are used in the
power supplies of vacuum tube and transistor
equipment. The testing method described here requires
a modification to the basic testing method discussed
below.

The non-electrolytic caps are subdivided into ceramic,

paper, mica, and plastic. The plastic kind are further
subdivided into various names of the plastic and all of
them seem to begin with "polly". I'm not going to bore
you by laboring through each of the various pollies. The
next time you order capacitors from a catalog or online
you will make their acquaintance.

Common Capacitor Troubles.

The most frequent failure mode of nonelectrolytic
capacitors is to become leaky. They behave as if a large
value resistor, 100 k ohms or higher, has been
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connected in parallel with the cap. As these types of

caps are most frequently used to block DC from getting
to a particular part of the circuit when they become
leaky they no longer perform that function.

For example in a standard circuit arrangement a cap is

used to couple signal from the plate of a tube to the grid
of the next tube. The DC which is also present at the
plate of a tube is most definitely not wanted at the grid
of the next. A leaky cap can send some of the DC to the
grid causing lots of trouble.

A leaky cap can manifest itself in several ways. If the

grid belongs to an output tube the plate may glow red.
The leaky capacitor places some positive DC on the
grid which may partly or wholly cancel the negative
bias. This causes the tube to draw too much current and
the plate has to dissipate more power than it is rated for.
To get rid of the extra power it rises to a higher
temperature and gets hot enough to glow red. This is
never a normal condition. If the coupling cap is between
low level stages, further back in the amplifier, the
resistance in the plate circuit will keep the tube from
dissipating enough power to glow red but the sound will
be badly distorted. You can often verify this using a
voltmeter to measure grid voltages. Tubes that use
cathode bias should have zero volts on the grid. Tubes
which use fixed bias should have the negative voltage
on the grids and in the case of a push pull output both
tubes should have the same grid voltage.

There aren't many places where even a small amount of

leakage can be tolerated but there are a few. Often a
capacitor is connected from some part of the circuit to
ground. These are usually called "bypass" capacitors.
That's not a special kind of cap, just the way it is being
used in the circuit. If the resistance associated with the
cap is not too large it can work for many years with a
small leakage current. If it is a screen bypass cap it may
lower the screen grid voltage and lower the gain of the
amplifier stage. A leaky cap in the AGC circuit of a
receiver may or may not have a significant effect on its
operation.
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Electrolytic capacitors can fail in one of two ways. One

is to be open. The capacitance is reduced to a very small
value because the electrolyte has dried out. It will no
longer provide filtering and the symptom will be a
strong AC hum in the radio or amplifier.

The other failure mode is to conduct a heavy current

when the operating voltage is applied. This will blow
the power supply fuse if the equipment has one. In an
all American five radio such a capacitor will burn out
the rectifier tube. Note that such a capacitor may test as
good on a tester intended for transistor electrolytic
capacitors.

One more failure mode of capacitors is to develop a

series resistance. This is abbreviated ESR which stands
for effective series resistance. This failure mode is
difficult to test for using simple equipment such as is
being discussed in this article. It happens much more
often to electrolytic than to plastic film capacitors. In a
power supply it will manifest itself as increased ripple
in the power supply but the capacitor will test good
using the technique described on this page.

Making the Test.

This is not an in circuit test. You must at the very least
disconnect one end of the cap. If you are using a DMM
or VTVM and you leave one end of the cap connected
to the circuit it is possible that some interference can be
picked up and throw the readings off. Here is the test
circuit.

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For a verbal description click here.

The power supply should provide a fairly stable DC

output. The meter should be set to measure DC voltage.

Power supply voltage.

The power supply doesn't have to be adjustable but
things may be easier if it is. It needs to be matched to
the capacitors to be tested. If you have a 600 volt power
supply, you can only test 600 volt, and higher,
capacitors. If you have a 400 volt supply, you can test
400 volt, and higher, caps. If you have a 200 volt power
supply ... I think you get the idea. Most coupling and
bypass caps are 400 or 600 volts so in the example
below a 400 volt power supply will be used.

Type and Range Setting of the Meter.

If you use a 20,000 ohms per volt VOM set to the 500
volt range its input resistance is 10 meg ohms. That's
the input resistance of most DMMs and VTVMs.
Before you use a particular instrument be sure you
know what it is. If you have a DMM or VTVM that has
a 100 or 1000 meg ohm input resistance you can
connect a 10 meg ohm resistor in parallel with it. If you
have a 1000 ohms per volt VOM you can't use it, it's not
sensitive enough.

Match the range setting to the power supply. I use an

adjustable power supply set to 400 volts and a VOM set
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to the 500 volt range. Remember that the resistance of a

VOM changes depending on the setting of the range
switch. If you are using a 200 volt or 600 volt power
supply set the range of your meter accordingly. The
meter should always be set to a range higher than the
voltage of the power supply. That way even if the
capacitor is a dead short you won't do any damage to
your meter.

If you are testing an electrolytic capacitor connect a 220

k ohm 2 watt resistor in parallel with your meter.

Making the Test.

In the following it is assumed that the power supply
comes on instantly when the switch is thrown. If it does
not because of the warm up delay of a rectifier tube you
need to connect a switch in series with the capacitor so
you can apply the voltage suddenly.

Connect up the circuit and set the meter to the proper

range as explained above. If the meter is a DMM or
VTVM turn it on and let it warm up. Then turn on the
power supply. The meter will show a high voltage for a
short time but the reading will decay to zero vary
quickly.

The time back to zero is about 8 time constants. One

time constant in seconds is equal to R in ohms times C
in farads. If you are using a meter with 10 meg ohms
input resistance and testing a .1 microfarad cap the time
constant is 1 second. If the capacitor is good the meter
should indicate zero after 8 seconds.

If you are testing an electrolytic capacitor calculate the

time constant from 220 k ohms times the capacitance in
farads.

If the cap is totally shorted the meter will read the

output voltage of the power supply and stay there. A
more likely outcome is for the cap to be leaky. In that
case the meter will kick high and fall back but not all
the way to zero. Using a 10 meg ohm meter the leakage
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current in microamps is given by I = V / 10. A cap with

a leakage current of only 1 microamp will throw the
bias off by .5 volts if the grid resistor is 500 k ohms.

Switching the meter to a lower range should be done

with caution. If you should forget to change it back you
could burn out your meter.

If the meter fails to kick high it means one of two

things. Either the capacitor is open or the capacitance is
too small to produce a noticeable kick. A .01
microfarad cap is about the smallest that will give the
kick. Of course this depends on the response speed of
the meter movement. You might be able to go as low as
.0025 microfarads if you have a small and fast meter.

If you connect an electrolytic capacitor to the tester a

direct current will be observed which will never go to
zero. This is termed the leakage current. In normal
operation it does no harm but if it becomes too large the
capacitor can fail violently as described above. A set of
formulas which give the approximate leakage current
are given below.

ILMin = Sqrt(VC)/5

ILMax = Sqrt(VC)/2

ILWorst Case = Sqrt(VC)*6

Where IL is the leakage current in microamps, V is the

rated voltage in volts, and C is the rated capacitance of
the capacitor in microfarads.

With a 220 k ohm resistor in parallel with the meter the

leakage current is given by

ILMeasured = V / 220 k ohms

Where V is the reading on the voltmeter.

This circuit can be used to reform an old electrolytic.

The current will gradually come down over time when
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left connected. If the leakage current will not go below

the worst case value calculated above it is doubtful that
it can be used successfully in a circuit. It should be
thrown away.

The ILMin and ILMax values may seem a little

optimistic especially on older capacitors. However the
ILWorst Case is not. For example suppose you have a 100
uf cap at 450 volts. If you apply 400 volts to this
capacitor the worst case leakage current is.

ILWorst Case = Sqrt(400*100)*6 = 1.2 x 103 microamps

= 1.2 mA.

Multiplying this current by 400 volts gives the power

dissipated by the leaky capacitor.

P = 1.2 mA x 400 volts = 0.48 watts.

That's getting up to the point where the capacitor may

begin to feel a little warm. If it's warm on the outside
it's hot on the inside. To avoid a literal explosion it's
best not to use a capacitor with this amount of leakage.

NOS and NIB.

These are terms you often run into on eBay or online
antique electronics dealers. NOS stands for New Old
Stock and NIB stands for New In Box. They mean
essentially the same thing. The product May be 50 years
old but has never been taken out of the box or has never
been used in any way. Electrolytic capacitors that are
NOS or NIB have special problems and may be revived
as explained in the article Restoring Dead Capacitors.
Nonelectrolytics may be as good as the day they rolled
off the production line or the may not. This test is
absolutely recommended for such caps.

A Stand Alone Cap Tester.

If you like to build things you may want to make a
dedicated capacitor tester rather than kluge it together
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each time you test a cap. If so, here is a circuit.

For a verbal description click here.

The transformer should be a 280 VCT (140-0-140) at as

low a current rating as you can find. Unless you plan to
let it serve double duty as a project power supply. When
used to test capacitors the current drawn from the
transformer secondary is miniscule. The meter needs to
be a 50 microamp full scale movement. If it has a 0 to
50 microamp scale that's fine because the current is
what you really want to know. If it has a different scale
you can replace it using the techniques described in the
Filter Choke Analyzer article. Do not omit the 150 k
ohm 2 watt resistor. This is to discharge the filter
capacitor after the power switch is turned off. The
nature of this tester requires that the voltage start from
zero each time. The 150 k ohm resistor discharges the
filter capacitor.
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Eric contacted me to inform me about the version he

built. He used a momentary pushbutton switch for
power on/off. I think this is an excellent idea. It
prevents the power from being accidentally left on and
makes sure that when you are ready for the next test the
power is off and the filter capacitor fully discharged.

When testing small non-electrolytic capacitors the

rotary switch should be set to the open position. In this
setting the meter reads leakage current directly.

When testing electrolytic capacitors the meter becomes

a voltmeter with 500 volts full scale. The measured
leakage current is

ILMeasured = V / R

Where V is the reading on the voltmeter and R is the

value of the resistor that is selected. The selection of
resistors allows the tester to be used to reform
electrolytic capacitors. For details on how to reform
capacitors refer to Restoring Dead Capacitors.

This article illustrates that you can do a lot without

sophisticated equipment like that found in university
and industrial research laboratories. Have fun.

A heart in love with the beauty

of glowing tubes never grows old.

Home

This page last updated February 20, 2017.

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