Long Term Stability / Temporal Inconstancy

Environmental influences such as heat, high humidity and strong mechanical vibrations can, over a longer period of time, due to ageing, lead to an irreversible change in the capacitance value.

The information about the temporal inconstancy lays down the maximum extent to which the capacitance of a capacitor may change under the influence of environmental factors.

As a rule, temporal inconstancy is given in %. The period of time specified by the relevant standards is 2 years, based on a regular temperature of +40°C. Changes after two years are virtually of no importance.

Typical values are, for example, ±3% for KT-/MKT capacitors and ±0.5 or ±1% for KP-/MKP capacitors according to type.