Where are all the ESR meters?

You might consider traveling to a civilized country to get the work done. I hear they have very good cheap dental treatment in China, for example.

Clifford Heath.

You try it, and let me know. That is, if you survive.

Go to the diabetes group here:

Yep, Michael, Please be quiet... Fred needs all the attention ;-)

...Jim Thompson

You might go to the same site and see if there's help for Napoleon complex...

Your new, recent facade persona didn't last long.

Do you react like this because nobody gives a damn about you, but they do care about other people? Or are you simply a low-life POS as I suspect?

Okay, it's not called Napoleon complex anymore, it's Narcissistic Personality Disorder or NPD. A support group can be found here:

Well? YOU should know the way ;-)

...Jim Thompson

"low-life POS" is the short form ;-)

...Jim Thompson

A quick look at the schematic and writeup suggests that it can't untangle ESR from capacitance at low C values. The "good esr versus capacitance" chart screened on the front confirms.

Besides, this is sci.electronics.design, not sci.electronics.copy.

John

:)

fair call.

the stupidest thing I have ever seen was when I was a kid, circa 1975 - some guy asked my dad to look at his brand new stereo. He had wired

Cheers Terry

Good point on the switch contact resistance. With Terry's mod, the arc will be at the probes, not in the switch. Someone asked about the loud bang when you connect the probes - I think it should be there. It adds a "feeture" to the instrument: an audible indication that when translated from "electronian" says "Hey asshole! You're probing a charged cap".

Ed

Yup, and make that to a solid tant cap and you've found a good way to have to change it.

You can also fry some other components in the process, depending on other caps that were still being charged and on the circuit.

I can't get that group - and I suspect not many others can either :(

It looks like you could do a lot with this chip:

but perhaps that's cheating.

It has a DDS (that could generate the excitation), 1MHz 12 bit ADC and quite a fast 32 bit CPU.

I still have a couple of those surplus Radio Shack 20 second digital voice recorders. Should it yell, 'You idiot!', or have it 'Bray like the old donkey on Hee Haw'? Maybe a loud thunder clap, to go with the artificial lightning? ;-)

Thanks - at least I can see what others are talking about.

Your numbers don't compute for me. I'd like a 100mA signal if it worked out, but have accepted 10mA as a compromise. 1mA seems very wimpy, but assuming that, your 12V suppiy (while a pain for batteries) doesn't allow proper operation if there's very more than 12V sitting on the cap. And your 12k resistor would mean a 1-min discharge time constant with say 5000uF, yawn, waiting to get within the operating-voltage range.

I'm going for 25 ohms of discharge resistance, using another set of diodes to +/-3V rails. Of course, the rails must have a way to get rid of any excess energy.

I don't like a switch, because I don't have three hands.