A couple years back I latched onto a stash of brick-orange capacitors... "dipped". All 630v

There was a note in each bag of them that said

5 of 0.0015 mfd
5 of 0.003 mfd
5 of 0.004 mfd
5 of 0.006 mfd

I just never bothered to squint and read the tiny tiny print on the capacitors themselves.

They're not denominated in mfd.

Instead they are denominated:

152k
302k
402k
602k


So what do these "k" numbers represent? I am assuming it is not ohms of resistence. Is this some kind of part number?

And yes, there were exactly 5 of each, all in the bag together. All exactly the same size, shape and color... identical except for the fine print.

For the moment I'm going to assume that 152k = .0015 mfd, 302k = .003 mfd, etc....

Is this some new nomenclature I'm behind on?

You got it, k means 1000, so, whatever number you see in front of it, you multiply by 1000, and end up with the old school readings.

They are marked in uuFd or Pico Farads. 15--then 2 zeros 1500 , etc. 1500 Pfd = 0.0015 uFd.

Ok, thanks - measuring in pico farads now... should have guessed it would be something like that.

Glasdave! Go to the back of the class!

"K" does not mean 1,000 in this case.
It's the tolerance code, and means + or - 10%

Here's an explanation, although you can find many others and "de-coding" charts by googling for "capacitor codes."
http://wiki.xtronics.com/index.php/Capacitor_Codes

To me, the system is a dang nusiance because of the necessity of shuffling the decimal point all around to get the value in microfarads. I've never gotten very good at doing it quickly in my head and more than once have used the wrong value because of a miscalculation.

I've got to admit though that other systems had their shortcomings too. Colors can fade, and be mis-identified if the light is not pure white.

Just when I think I got myself a system, that damnable logic creeps in...

Don't feel bad, glasdave; anyone with a Mr. Natural avy can't be all bad, eh eh.