Eli5 What does the uF stand for on a capacitor? Is bigger better or smaller?

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I have a very basic understanding of electronics and stuff and I want to know more so I was wondering if anyone could help me with this question?

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Anonymous 0 Comments

So there are a couple things going on…

First off, a “Farad” is the main/basic/fundamental unit of capacitance and it has the symbol “F”; so the “uF” you see is actually a combination of “F” with the prefix of “u” meaning “micro” (1/1,000,000) out front. In other words, something like “362uF” actually means “362 micro-Farads” or “0.000362 Farads”.

Secondly, since “1uF” means “1 micro Farad” means “0.000001 F” that would definitely be “less” than something saying “1mF” means “1 milli Farad” means “0.001 F” (because “0.000001 F < 0.001 F”). But the thing to keep in mind with electronics is that everything is supposed to be *tuned*-and-*balanced* to work for that specific electronic circuit. That means that rules-of-thumb like *”bigger=better”* DO NOT APPLY! Replacing any capacitor in a circuit with something “bigger” or “smaller” is more likely to push something else “out of tune” than it is to make things overall “better”.

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