I was going through posts like Turn your Arduino into a capacitor tester ... - General Electronics - Arduino Forum which was started by Nick Gammon. And other similar projects like New Arduino Capacitance Meter - YouTube. But what I wanted was a simple breadboard style layout to explain how to remake the circuit. It was a bit complicated for my to translate a circuit diagram to the breadboard (following up with the posts in Nicks article). In short I want to re-create the capacitor meter and try it.
Learning how to read and draw circuit schematic diagrams means that you will be able to speak the common language of electronics engineers. It's worth it to spend some time learning how to get beyond pictorial representations.
The beautiful thing about that circuit, is that there is no complex bit. The Arduino switches an output to HIGH and starts a timer, it charges a capacitor through a resistor. Another pin is monitoring the voltage on the capacitor through its internal comparator, when it reaches the set point it stops a timer. The number on the timer is a linear function of amount of capacitance, as per the formulas given in that thread.
Alright will do that. Thank you. I am unable to understand where the capacitor goes. One leg is in the line between D2 & D6 but the other leg of the capacitor goes to ground? If the other leg goes to ground then what is the purpose of D7 > 180k (resistor) > 5V and here again I am confused where one leg of the 330k resistor is in the line between D7 and 5V, where does the other pin go? I cannot recognise the symbol and also the fact that these two are separated is confusing me. Sorry for noob questions.
The capacitor under test (C) goes between D6 and Gnd
Connect a 10K resistor between D2 and D6
Connect a 1.8K resistor between D7 and 5V
Connect a 3.1K resistor between D7 and Gnd
As the others have said these are standard schematic symbols. The boxes with pointy bits refer to pins on the Arduino board (D2, D6, D7). The others are standard symbols.
I tried this circuit with the code from Nick's sketch and still was not able to make it work. Can I get some more assistance on this. I am on a arduino uno r3. and for the circuit R1=10k R2=1.8k R3=3.1k and I used the code from the post (the first code nick posted). 
