capacitor question

[LightSoundGeometry]

I got some old phillips  axial caps 4u7 63v and they are reading out on my chinese thingy as two diodes  uf3.37 2.84 v or am I reading it wrong?

doesnt NPn transistors work like this to, read out as a diode sometimes like 7.2ma or something or is my tester messed up

[GibsonGM]

You sure it's "uf" and not "Vf"?   I'd expect the 'uF', microfarads, and if they're old and 'large tolerance', 3.37 might be 'right' (altho only 50% of what they're supposed to be..).   Age? 

Don't know why you are getting a 'forward voltage drop', LOL; shouldn't.   I have one of these things, they usually work pretty well but you have to keep an eye out for nonsense results like this - maybe the socket is dirty or something.   Yes,  a NPN would be 2 diodes - my unit shows it as a transistor if it's good, 2 'weirdly connected diodes' if a bad connection or dirty terminals.   

Try cleaning the terminals with alcohol and a Q tip.

[antonis]

Discharge them and try to measure their Resistance...

It should be sequential rising from a couple of hundred Ohms (depenting on disharge degree..) to infinite - tester leads with right polarity...

[LightSoundGeometry]

ohms started anywhere from 9 meg to .2 meg and dropped in sequence

I think they are just old and bad possibly

[R.G.]

It's always educational to know what old/abused components look like electronically.

However, it's poor economy to use old electrolytic caps for anything. Electrolytic caps decay just sitting there. Putting old ones in new builds ensures a lot of time puzzling about why the devil this thing stopped working.

What's a chinese thingy? They invented gunpowder, fireworks, rockets, paper and many other things. Is a chinese thingy one of these?   

[LightSoundGeometry]

a chinese thingy is a poor mans peak atlas

or similar