ESR METERS

See

for products with the DS label.

Save yourself alot of time and buy a Cap Wizard

I have one of those I bought back when it was the only game in town and have been very happy with it. It is rather expensive in comparison to other products though.

Save yourself a lot of time and measure electrolytic cap ESR by any means available, including the 99 cent ESR adaptor at

Bob

In saving time... that's where the Cap Wizard wins, since its setup time is basically minimized...

"Thank God it's 5 PM, only 7 more working hours until bedtime."

Doug Jones' Cap Wizard's a great instrument. I've never heard a single bad word about it, but plenty of praise. All I'm saying is that any kind of ESR measurement saves an amazing amount of time in a repair situation. Just ask Larry Dishman who sometimes pops up here, who's been a fan of the Creative ESR meter for

20 years or more.

Bob is right, as usual. The most important feature of an ESR meter is that one is on your bench. They all work, have different features, strengths and weaknesses. Some of it is personal preference.

For years we carried both the DSE (Bob Parker's design) and the Capacitor Wizard. When customers asked for a recommendation between them I always said that it came down to personal preference for an analog meter and a digital readout.

The Cap Wizard has the additional advantage of an audible beep which allows you to keep your eyes on the unit under test and move along from cap to cap. The DSE unit has a price advantage. Make your choice.

The Cap Wizard is also sensitive to charged caps. The repair is not hard but that is non-productive time. That is why we developed the Savr circuit for it - lets the meter work but protects up to 400 volts.

John The Electronic Repair Center at

Professional electronic repair discussion at

I might as well add a word about some cheap imports that have been manufactured in China and sold by (for instance) a big electronic wholesaler in Toronto. Those ESR meters have major problems with protection... one should implement input protection, else its only a matter of time and a waste of Can$ 39.95 since they are completely toast after an ordeal with a charged capacitor.

"Thank God it's Friday, only two more working days until Monday."

Hi Bob I built your kit a few years ago and it has been a great addition to my shop. It still amazes me the dead sets I get working without a schematic by just poking around a SMPS and finding a high ESR cap. Prior to getting this meter I would resort to other tricks. I would try powering up and after fifteen minutes or so feel the caps around the power supply. Sometimes a warm one turned out to be the culprit. Then there was always the hot bridging method. Lots of sparks and excitement At least once you will inadvertently reverse polarity. I wiped out a regulator and scared the crap out of my wife that day. With my meter though it doesn't lie. Among many other things we do here, I rebuild apartment house intercom amplifiers. These things sit in a lobby wall for twenty years and will suddenly start sounding like crap. I find dried up electrolytics with my meter almost every time. Its a quick profitable repair. and the building managers love it too as I rebuild their equipment at a fraction of the cost of new. One serious concern I have though is that on more than one occaision I have discharged caps through the meter . Apparently, and luckily these were not charged enough to damage it but seeing an arc even a small one through my meter sure disturbed me though. I read somewhere in this thread about the installation of two diodes. Could you please tell me the specifics of this modification? Thanks very much and best regards, Lenny Stein, Barlen Electronics.

Hi again Lenny, I know what you mean about the "hot bridging" technique. It's not for the faint-hearted! There's also a fairly high risk of damaging semiconductors in the circuit, as I seem to remember happening to me a long time ago. Regarding the idea of adding extra diodes for protection, this is what I wrote about it in the Mark 2 kit instructions: "Heavy-duty protection. To provide greater protection against connection to charged electrolytics, some kit builders have connected an inverse-parallel pair of 1N5404 (or similar) high-power diodes between the test lead sockets (jacks). If you?re the kind who?s likely to connect the meter to the

120uF input filter capacitor of a 240V-powered switching power supply without checking that it?s been properly discharged, this modification is for you. Reportedly, this protects the meter quite well, although it can result in the probe tips being blown off by large charged capacitors. The resulting surge current can also damage the charged capacitor and the power diodes themselves. However, without the diodes, the resulting >600A current spike destroys the microcontroller (IC2) and damages C6." Anatek Corp was selling a little protection board for the DSE ESR meter, and probably still is. It's much kinder to the meter and capacitors than the above brute-force idea. On the down side, it adds a small amount of resistance to the test lead circuit, making it essential to use high quality low resistance test leads. I hope this gives you some ideas to think about. I'm delighted that the meter's been assisting you for so long. :)

Regards, Bob

" snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com" wrote:

What a horrible website! The color combination makes it impossible for me to read and it is so slow I gave up on it.

--
Former professional electron wrangler. 

Michael A. Terrell 
Central Florida

Can you let someone in the US order parts and package the kits?

--
Former professional electron wrangler.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

The whole thing is a dreadful and quite confusing advertisement for an excellent ESR meter. Someone is going to have to go right through it and fix it up. It proves the old saying that "Electronics professionals should not try to design websites"!

Bob

I can read it OK but it looks like something a baby vomited up.

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N

marketed

Thanks for the interesting suggestion, Max. :) These days I'm working for someone else, and I wouldn't begin to have time to get all the bits and pieces together and sell them as kits or assembled units. DSE is shooting themselves in the foot by upsetting buyers of their kits in quantity, and EVB doesn't seem to know anything about marketing. I'm not sure what to do....

Cheers, Bob

In "PopTronics" (USA) July 2001, pages 25-28 there is a build it yourself design that uses a few common parts and has full protection. It claims to test in circuit from 1 uF on up.

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N

I remember that one quite well, because of the absurd number of errors in the schematic. Don't even think of building it until you've got all the errata notes which came out in subsequent issues. :)

"NSM" wrote:

Not unusual for them!

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N