Capacitors - Technical MCQs

Q1:

An ohmmeter can be used to test a capacitor.

A True

B False

ANS:A - True

Test a Capacitor with an Ohmmeter of a Multimeter.

By taking the capacitor's resistance, we can determine whether the capacitor is good or bad.

To do this test, We take the ohmmeter and place the probes across the leads of the capacitor. The orientation doesn't matter, because resistance isn't polarized. If we read a very low resistance (near 0°) across the capacitor, we know the capacitor is defective. It is reading as if there is a short circuit across it.

If we read a very high resistance across the capacitor (several M°), this is a sign that the capacitor likely is defective as well. It is reading as if there is an open circuit across the capacitor.

A normal capacitor would have a resistance reading up somewhere in between these 2 extremes, say, anywhere in the tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of ohms. But not 0' or several M'.

This is a simple but effective method for finding out if a capacitor is defective or not.