All About Capacitor Markings

What do the letters and numbers mean on these caps. I ordered .022uf caps and these are marked 223K, what the hell???, LOL.

Well....

Capacitors are typically identified with markings using the IEC standard, which is an international standard put in place by the International Electrotechnical Commission, to avoid confusion in international marketplaces manufacturing electronic components.

The IEC standard for capacitors works like this:

The numbers work like this:

The first 2 numbers are the base value,

the 3rd number is the multiplier (number of zeros).

Capacitors are marked in Picofarads.

So:

A capacitor marked 473 means 47 plus 3 zeros = 47,000 picofarads = .047uf

A capacitor marked 503 is 50 plus 3 zeros = 50,000 picofarads = .05uf

Standard IEC Marking	pf Value	uf Value	nf Value
101	100	0.0001
151	150	0.00015
221	220	0.00022
331	330	0.00033
471	470	0.00047
681	680	0.00068
102	1000	0.001	1
152	1500	0.0015	1n5
222	2200	0.0022	2n2
332	3300	0.0033	3n3
472	4700	0.0047	4n7
682	6800	0.0068	6n8
103	10000	0.01	10
153	15000	0.015	15
183	18000	0.018	18
203	20000	0.02	20
223	22000	0.022	22
333	33000	0.033	33
473	47000	0.047	47
503	50000	0.05	50
683	68000	0.068	68
104	100000	0.1	100

What do the letters mean?

IEC uses a letter to designate Tolerance as follows:

Tolerance codes are as follows:

Code	Tolerance	Code	Tolerance
B	± 0.1 pF	J	± 5%
C	± 0.25 pF	K	± 10%
D	± 0.5 pF	M	± 20%
F	± 1%	Z	+ 80%, -20%
G	± 2%