MICA CAPACITORS

Mica is popularly known as Isin glass. Important characteristics of Mica:

i) Its ability to operate at very high temperature (upto 500 ^oC).

ii) The material is almost totally inert and will not change with age, either chemically or physically.

iii) Mica is usable as a dielectric in its naturally state.

iv) It can be readily split into very thin sheets.

Mica capacitors are made by a method of depositing a thin layer of silver on each side of sheet of Mica was developed. This is done by a type of silver screen process. The silver is then fired in a furnace.

The principal advantage of Mica capacitor is its excellent degree of stability over a wide range of operating temperatures.

Mica capacitors are also among the best types to use where radio frequencies are involved.

Disadvantages of Mica capacitors:

i) They are relatively bulky when compared to other capacitors on a pure capacitance vs volume basis.

ii) The flat plates and method of construction lead to resonant frequency problems in some circuits.

Checking capacitors with an ohmmeter

Set the range of Ohm meter to higher range greater than 1MOhm. The ohm-meter leads are to be connected across leads of capacitor. Fora good capacitor, the meter first shows low value and then slowly recedes to a higher value. The reading gets stabilized to  a higher value after some time due to charging action.

For ceramic, paper and Mica capacitors, the resistance falls in the range 500 - 1000 MOhm.
For electrolytic capacitors, it is around 1MOhm.

If ohmmeter reading immediately goes to zero and stays there, the capacitor is short circuited.

If capacitor shows no charging action but just reads very high resistance it may be open.

Stray capacitance:

The wiring and components in a circuit have capacitance to metal chassis. The stray capacitance is typically 5 to 10PF.  

Leakage resistance of capacitor: 

Consider a capacitor charged by a DC voltage source. If the source is removed a perfect capacitor would keep its charge indefinitely.