Measure Capacitance with Arduino

Capacitance is an object’s ability to store an electric charge. Reasonably, this object is referred to as a capacitor. A capacitor that stores this charge in an electric field between two conductive plates is known as a parallel plate capacitor. The non-conductive material that is between these two plates is known as a dielectric. Dielectrics change the amount of charge a capacitor can hold and , in practice, what the particular capacitor would be used for (e.g. high frequency circuits, high voltage circuits, etc).

The equation for the capacitance of a parallel plate capacitor is:

C = (εA) / d

where ε is the permittivity of free space or dielectric, A is the surface area of overlap between the plates, and d is the distance between the plates.

For more detail: Measure Capacitance with Arduino