DIYbanter - View Single Post - Capacitors: UF = MFD but what the heck is NF?

Ralph Mowery

In article ,
says...

40 years ago, back when I did a lot with electronics, capacitors were
either F (farads), UF or MFD microfarads, (UF and MFD were the same
thing), or PF (Picofarad). Now they are using NF. What the heck is that?

Thought you were old school.

What is the PF stuff ??? For me it was usually uF and uuF for the small
stuff and the MFD was for the larger capacitors.

I am not old enough to remember when most all capacitors were called
condensers all the time. For me most electronics was capacitors and the
condensers were used across the points of gas engines.

I think that NF stuff was (is) an attempt to get numbers to the left of
the decimal point. While not exectally,but similar to the scientific
notation where you have one number to the left of the decimal point and
all the others to the right raised to a power of ten.