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$23 Capacitor Tester/meter - ships from US
- Thread starter uniserver
- Start date
Mk.558
Well-known member
Yup.
Nothing new, but is based on the Transistor Testor by Markus Frejek. Then the project was picked up (by and by in large) by Karl-Heinz Kübbeler who has updated it on a semi-regular basis to include a number of other features and improvements.
It is based on an AVR ATmega series microcontroller and uses just about every single pin on the µC. The the LCD is driven in 4 bit mode and str("insert electronic chattering here").
I've been meaning to build one, a rather slick one that has a RGB 16x2 LCD instead of a bland boring conventional one that is driven (the backlight part) by a ATtiny84 or 85 by PWM. I believe I have nearly all the parts, just missing one or two IIRC, just haven't gotten around to it. It also will have RCA jacks so I can hook up three test leads for remote part IDing.
It's a very useful tool, because it will print out the location of the B, C, and E for BJT transistors, and the G, D, and S for FET based transistors. For diodes it will show the Vf, inductors, etc.
For capacitors, the problem is that you can only estimate the capacitance, and estimate the ESR. (Talk about ESR was beginning around the 1.01(k) versions, but didn't get added until the 1.04(k) version.) ESR isn't something you can reliably use to detect the health of the caps, because good caps can have bad ESR and bad caps can have good ESR. There are some professional grade $$$ capacitor testing units which may have other methods of testing them.
Still though, it's a very good unit, disposable if need be, for identifying various components.
I have been intent on building mine out of prototyping board, but since I am not even remotely familiar with e-CAD stuff, I can't make a proper board and have it sent out to be made via a place like BatchPCB. OTOH, I could dig around and probably even make them for this forum, although it'd be just like mine with a RGB LCD (with three dials to control each color individually) and jacks. Depends on interest -- I've been too busy working on the Guide.
Nothing new, but is based on the Transistor Testor by Markus Frejek. Then the project was picked up (by and by in large) by Karl-Heinz Kübbeler who has updated it on a semi-regular basis to include a number of other features and improvements.
It is based on an AVR ATmega series microcontroller and uses just about every single pin on the µC. The the LCD is driven in 4 bit mode and str("insert electronic chattering here").
I've been meaning to build one, a rather slick one that has a RGB 16x2 LCD instead of a bland boring conventional one that is driven (the backlight part) by a ATtiny84 or 85 by PWM. I believe I have nearly all the parts, just missing one or two IIRC, just haven't gotten around to it. It also will have RCA jacks so I can hook up three test leads for remote part IDing.
It's a very useful tool, because it will print out the location of the B, C, and E for BJT transistors, and the G, D, and S for FET based transistors. For diodes it will show the Vf, inductors, etc.
For capacitors, the problem is that you can only estimate the capacitance, and estimate the ESR. (Talk about ESR was beginning around the 1.01(k) versions, but didn't get added until the 1.04(k) version.) ESR isn't something you can reliably use to detect the health of the caps, because good caps can have bad ESR and bad caps can have good ESR. There are some professional grade $$$ capacitor testing units which may have other methods of testing them.
Still though, it's a very good unit, disposable if need be, for identifying various components.
I have been intent on building mine out of prototyping board, but since I am not even remotely familiar with e-CAD stuff, I can't make a proper board and have it sent out to be made via a place like BatchPCB. OTOH, I could dig around and probably even make them for this forum, although it'd be just like mine with a RGB LCD (with three dials to control each color individually) and jacks. Depends on interest -- I've been too busy working on the Guide.
While it's not the end-all, be-all test, I've found ESR to be a very reliable way of testing electrolytic capacitors, especially in switching power supply applications where they are high failure items. ESR becomes critical at higher frequencies and at least 95% of the bad electrolytic caps I've found have had high ESR.
I've never used that particular tool though, I bought a Capacitor Wizard about 15 years ago when they were the only one around. These days there are a number of simple analog ESR tester circuits floating around.
I've never used that particular tool though, I bought a Capacitor Wizard about 15 years ago when they were the only one around. These days there are a number of simple analog ESR tester circuits floating around.
