Hi folks, thought I'd share something I just discovered.
I wanted to verify the values of some Tayda ceramic caps (10pF - 100pF range) but my multimeter is not very accurate in that range. 47pFs were measuring at about 20p. 1nF and higher it has no problem and is accurate.
I thought about ordering a dedicated Capacitance Meter, but then I discovered a little trick.
I got accurate results for those small values by testing them in parallel with a box cap around 1nF.
Easiest for my setup is to use a breadboard with a 1nF cap across the multimeter leads, and then hit the "relative" button to zero it out. I can then plug & unplug my little ceramics into the breadboard to my heart's content, and am getting accurate measurements. Try it!
I just wanted to share this because I did not find any such suggestion in my online searching, only references to the unreliability of most multimeters in this low range. The DIY solutions I did find were quite complex. Cheers!
That's a neat trick. I don't think any of my meters have a "zero" function, however. So I think you could get the same result by measuring the 1n cap first and then adding the other cap in parallel to see the change.
Yep, good advice. I need to use the relative function on my Fluke 8 IV to get reasonable measurements of low value caps. It's not as good as an LCR meter, but it is good enough to get by.