Build this circuit, it adapts your VOM or DMM into a capacitance measuring device.

Build this circuit, it adapts your VOM or DMM into a capacitance measuring device. 

The parts values you see are intended to display 1pF per mV on the lowest scale, so on a 2V reading you’d have 2000pF or 2nF. The highest range is 20uF at 2V. You MUST use a regulated voltage. A 9V battery and a 7805 will work just fine, as will four AA or AAA and a modern low dropout regulator.

That is my circuit, I designed it and was selling capacitance meters starting in high school in the late ‘70s. The first ones just used a 50uA meter or your own VOM analog multimeter as the display, this particular circuit was designed for use with a DMM on the 200mV scale. But it is good to 2V output.

I still have the prototype that I build for DMMs from this circuit. I recently found out it is good to 10fF on a meter that can read down to 10uV!