wintercept
Well-known member
Greetings. I was working on a build last night and decided to measure my 470nF film box caps from Tayda before using them. I found they all had a pretty high ESR, around 6-8 ohms.
So I went on a bit of a testing spree:
220nF caps from Tayda in the slimmer box measured 17-18 ohms! It’s worth noting that lower value caps (47nF was next highest value I had from Tayda) did not register any ESR on the meter. Higher value caps have more film in them, so naturally they have a higher resistance.
I decided to test other brands:
This is a 1uF cap from Small Bear (Topmay I believe) measured just 1.7 ohms. Still on the higher side compared to lower values but nowhere near the Tayda ones. A Wima 1uF from Tayda measured about 1.7 ohms as well.
I determined that for my purposes, as input and output coupling caps in a Zendrive clone, the Tayda caps were fine. They were within spec for their value and had no leakage, and they wouldn’t add anything to the series resistance that’s already there.
That said, I just wanted to share incase anyone explicitly needs low ESR for a specific application, look to higher quality stuff. I’ll be ordering and testing some of the KEMET stuff from Tayda, as the highest value I have of that brand is 100nF, and that one had no ESR register on the meter. I’d say KEMET from Digikey or Epcos (I think) from Mouser are good alternatives to Tayda caps in bulk.
I’d appreciate if someone more knowledgeable chimed in here as well. My understanding of ESR and it’s implications in different circuits is pretty limited.
So I went on a bit of a testing spree:
220nF caps from Tayda in the slimmer box measured 17-18 ohms! It’s worth noting that lower value caps (47nF was next highest value I had from Tayda) did not register any ESR on the meter. Higher value caps have more film in them, so naturally they have a higher resistance.
I decided to test other brands:
This is a 1uF cap from Small Bear (Topmay I believe) measured just 1.7 ohms. Still on the higher side compared to lower values but nowhere near the Tayda ones. A Wima 1uF from Tayda measured about 1.7 ohms as well.
I determined that for my purposes, as input and output coupling caps in a Zendrive clone, the Tayda caps were fine. They were within spec for their value and had no leakage, and they wouldn’t add anything to the series resistance that’s already there.
That said, I just wanted to share incase anyone explicitly needs low ESR for a specific application, look to higher quality stuff. I’ll be ordering and testing some of the KEMET stuff from Tayda, as the highest value I have of that brand is 100nF, and that one had no ESR register on the meter. I’d say KEMET from Digikey or Epcos (I think) from Mouser are good alternatives to Tayda caps in bulk.
I’d appreciate if someone more knowledgeable chimed in here as well. My understanding of ESR and it’s implications in different circuits is pretty limited.