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Asked by: Wilzon Guilabert
home and garden indoor environmental qualityHow do you check capacitor polarity with a multimeter?
Herein, how do you determine the polarity of a capacitor?
To determine polarityinCAPACITORS: Electrolytic capacitors are often marked withastripe. That stripe indicates the NEGATIVE lead. If it's anaxialleaded capacitor (leads come out of opposite ends ofthecapacitor), the stripe may be accompanied by an arrowthatpoints to the negative lead.
Just so, which side of the capacitor is positive?
The majority of electrolytic capacitorsarepolarized types, that is the voltage connected tothecapacitor terminals must have the correct polarity,i.e.positive to positive and negativetonegative.
To test the capacitor with amultimeter,set the meter to read in the highohms range,somewhere above 10k and 1m ohms. Touch the meterleads tothe corresponding leads on the capacitor, redtopositive and black to negative. The meter should startatzero and then moving slowly toward infinity.