RE: Home made capacitors rule..sort of

["Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>]

Original poster: Jim Lux <jimlux-at-earthlink-dot-net> 

At 11:17 AM 12/8/2003 -0700, you wrote:
>Original poster: "John H. Couture" <couturejh-at-mgte-dot-com>
>
>Philip -
>
>I have Wavetek DM27XT and Beckman DM25L multimeters that test capacitance.
>They are rated +/- 2% and I have found them within 1% when I tested them
>with General Radio capacity standards. They both measure down to 1 pf
>capacitance, however, below 100 pf the accuracy is very poor. I should add
>that even bridge testers do no better. I use resonance tests with frequency
>counters for these low capacities.
>
>John Couture

For small capacitances (<100 pF), measurement/fixture errors will be very 
hard to control.  The stray capacitance of the meter itself, the test 
leads, the person standing there, etc. all are in the 10 pF range.