Coil Capacitance Test

Hi All,

I am trying to test Coil Capacitance but i am not really sure how to do this correctly.

Will this work?
If i connect a coil to a one shot circuit & watch the decay curve times of the Coils on an O-scope i guess this will show coil capacitance of one coil compared to another--is this correct?

My DMM has a Capacitance setting on it for Capacitors--can this be used for Coils?

Thanks

Capacitors have capacitance.

Coils (inductors) have inductance.

So no, the capacitance range of your meter will not measure inductance.

However, coils do have some small value of capacitance which will resonate with the inductance of the coil to give the self resonant frequency.
I suspect that this is not really what you are asking, or is it?

JimB

codan said:

Hi All,

I am trying to test Coil Capacitance but i am not really sure how to do this correctly.

Will this work?
If i connect a coil to a one shot circuit & watch the decay curve times of the Coils on an O-scope i guess this will show coil capacitance of one coil compared to another--is this correct?

My DMM has a Capacitance setting on it for Capacitors--can this be used for Coils?

Thanks

Click to expand...

Assuming you do want to test for Interwire Capacitance in a Coil, Here is a Method that I developed to do this.

**broken link removed**

Thanks Chemelec,

That is exactly what i was looking for!

Thanks Again.

codan said:

Thanks Chemelec,

That is exactly what i was looking for!

Thanks Again.

Click to expand...

Sorry, But I Forgot to add This Calculator Also.

**broken link removed**

Every conductor (and free space, and well really everything) has both capacitance and inductance inherent which cannot be made zero. This means that your coil while being mostly an inductor has a small bit of parasitic capacitance. To find out what it is,

pulse your coil with a sharp square wave.

Record the frequency of the subsequent "ring"

Get the equation for "LC" or "Tank" resonance

Input the variables of frequency, and inductance, and solve for capacitance.

Hope this helps!