Capacitor ESR Meters?

Anyone have any info on capacitor equivalent series resistance meters? I thought Capacitor Wizard used to be highly recommended. What are the recommended units today? Wondering if there was something better for the money now.

Sometimes I mess with older computers or controls that don't seem to work for whatever reason, I'm thinking capacitors would be likely to go bad over time as far as ESR going to high.

RogerN

Reply to
RogerN
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Peak atlas do one but its not cheap!

Reply to
ian field

Do you need an ESR meter? Usually one can just look at the voltage across the cap, operating, with a scope.

John

Reply to
John Larkin

You must be careful with in circuit testers. Make sure you get one that does not put any more than 1.5 volts in the circuit for testing otherwise, you can damage components in many today's toys.

Reply to
Jamie

Look around for Bob Parker's ESR meter kit; it's also knows as the Dick Smith kit as DSE was an early source for it.

There seems to be a "space age" version out now in a cool blue case. Doesn't have quite the nerdish cred of the earlier project box. ;-)

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for one source (among many).

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Rich Webb     Norfolk, VA
Reply to
Rich Webb

One of them I was looking at said it used (from memory) a 100khz signal

100mV p-p. That spec sounded good but I'm not sure if it was a good meter or not.

RogerN

Reply to
RogerN

There's an idea, instead of an ESR meter I have an excuse.. err.. reason to buy a signal generator and a better scope! :-)

RogerN

Reply to
RogerN

I do that also john.

I use my HP sig gen with my tek 350Mhz dual trace (because that's on the bench) into a fixture I made just to do those things. I set the gen for 100mv out.. One BNC from the scope and one BNC from the gen into a little plastic util box, 2 probes coming out for the test, divider network inside :)

What's really unique about that is, I've used that to find SR.

Reply to
Jamie

AFAIK the Bob Parker/DSE ESR meter is no longer produced, I got one from a UK distributor that had remaining stock.

You can find Bob Parker on News:aus.electronics he may be able to provide more details.

Reply to
ian field

Correct, they've moved on to the new version in the transparent case.

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Rich Webb     Norfolk, VA
Reply to
Rich Webb

When I have the cash to spare, I plan to go for the Atlas one with LCD and safe capacitor discharging function.

At the moment I can't justify it as I already have an ESR meter and other tools for checking the lower values below the DSE's minimum range.

Reply to
ian field

I use a General Radio Type 1611-A capacitance test bridge.

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Paul Hovnanian     mailto:Paul@Hovnanian.com
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Paul Hovnanian P.E.

Photo technique: Get slightly off-axis with the camera, and turn out any room lights. I then process thru Paint Shop Pro to tweak the brightness and contrast. (I just got Photo Shop, but don't know how to use it yet :-) ...Jim Thompson

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| James E.Thompson, CTO                            |    mens     |
| Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
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Jim Thompson

Jim Thompson wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

you can put a layer or two of toilet paper or tissue over the flash lens to diffuse it's output.Makes for a better picture.

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Jim Yanik
jyanik
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Reply to
Jim Yanik

For simply identifying bad esr caps, build a cheap one:

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If you want to know the exact ESR value, you'll probably want a commercial unit.

Ed

Reply to
ehsjr

That's not my photo. I just found that with Google.

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Paul Hovnanian     mailto:Paul@Hovnanian.com
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Paul Hovnanian P.E.

Jim Thompson Inscribed thus:

Try "GIMP" Runs well in Windows. (sourceforge)

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Best Regards:
                     Baron.
Reply to
Baron

But here is how it is REALLY done...

Free tools and tutorials at

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Many thanks,

Don Lancaster                          voice phone: (928)428-4073
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Reply to
Don Lancaster

Why would anyone use any of that 'stuff' if they already have the finest professional image processing program in the known universe... Adobe Photoshop?

Gimp is so color-challenged that it can't even handle CMYK properly. ;-)

Reply to
Spehro Pefhany

Because Photoshop does not remotely approach the capabilities of my custom code, of course.

Also because photoshop is outrageously overpriced.

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Many thanks,

Don Lancaster                          voice phone: (928)428-4073
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Reply to
Don Lancaster

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