SpudFiles

K so i stripped my disposable camera and am waiting to go to radio shack.. but how do i tell the polarity of my capacitor? There are no colored leads- just metal ones. can i just try one config and then the other or will that fry it?

And does a multimeter tell wire polarity?

Thanks guys

Normally they're marked on the outside with minus signs for the negative end.
A new cap can be identified by the length of the legs, but that's no good here of course.
Putting it in the wrong way round will fry it and a multimeter is next to useless for it.

Look on the casing. If it's clear from that, great. If not, it gets REALLY hard to tell AFAIK.

negative polarity should be indicated by a stripe or arrow. occasionally the shorter leg is the negative.
i'm not an expert, but if you were to google photoflash capacitor polarity you wil probably come up with a lot of info.

edit: i must be a real slow typer

here's a link to a pdf on rubycon aluminum electrolytic capacitors.

k thanks yea there's a stripe on the side of the cap.. thanks guys