Comments on: EEVblog #81 – Smart Tweezers LCR Meter Review And Teardown

By: Jake

Jake — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 20:35:17 +0000

Yeah, forget that. Look at the internals!
The price is a joke. I’ll wait until the chinese equivalent comes out for under $50.

By: Hans

Hans — Sat, 18 Sep 2010 23:13:10 +0000

At time 30:02 “leading” and “lagging” are mixed up. If the current is leading, the DUT is capacitive. If the current is lagging, it is inductive.

/Hans

By: Chris

Chris — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 22:57:58 +0000

Wow, I considered purchasing one of these until I saw the internals,

Way overpriced IMO .

By: diodao

diodao — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 20:10:02 +0000

They use H40 3.6V NiMH battery powered (charged) via PCB inductor.

By: ac

ac — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 06:27:23 +0000

Hello. Could you do a review of this free (well $1 for parts) LRC meter with “auto bias compensation”?

http://www.sillanumsoft.org/ZRLC.htm

I don’t quite understand the part of it where you plug the two opamps into the computer directly(???). Doesn’t the opamp +- supply voltage fry the computer! I think I maybe missing something here but the concept is still solid since I’ve seen this before but I didn’t manage to get the other program work since it wasn’t made for modern computers.

By: Barry

Barry — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 19:32:03 +0000

You mention replacing the batteries with an induction recharged battery. Got an example of a commercial product? Or were you talking about using a custom built marriage of a tiny lipo with a coil of your own making crammed into that tiny compartment?

By: EEVblog

EEVblog — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 13:11:14 +0000

Sell out? are you kidding?
I told the truth in my review, it’s a rather expensive niche product with some drawbacks, but otherwise fairly handy and well designed. It’s not a tool for everyone.
I actually use it, it’s rather neat.
If you’ve got some other opinion then great, how about you share it?

By: therian

therian — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 10:31:14 +0000

please don’t sell out, I believe we both know the truth about this product

By: Graham

Graham — Thu, 20 May 2010 21:57:15 +0000

A few months ago I had a circuit with a blown transistor and was checking to see if rest of SMD circuit was OK with regular probes and accidentally shorted a capacitor and cremated a SMD coil. I did not have a LCR meter and when I saw the SmartTweezers, I thought that was the solution as it would also be easier to use in checking SMD components off and on the board. I saved a few $ by going through e-Bay, but it was still pretty expensive. I guess being a Canadian I also was willing to spend a bit more even though I am more of a hobbyist!! So far they have been great, except for the reservations you mentioned. However I guess the main thing was that you gave them the thumbs up and it made me feel a bit better about having paid that much for them. Keep up the honest reviews.

By: Scott Burris

Scott Burris — Wed, 05 May 2010 00:35:25 +0000

Giving that for $361 you can buy the Agilent
U1732A-SMD LCR meter including tweezers, I’m having a hard time seeing the spending > $300 for the smart tweezers.

Scott

By: Hugo

Hugo — Mon, 03 May 2010 21:23:07 +0000

Send them to bible camp!

By: ftbase

ftbase — Mon, 03 May 2010 19:00:08 +0000

Great review.
Price is on the high side but I talked to their sales and was offered a discount code EEV0510 for orders originating from this blog.

By: Grapsus

Grapsus — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 21:43:41 +0000

Hi David! Very nice and exhaustive test!

Could you make the same kind of review for Open Bench Logic Analyzer ? (FPGA based, 32 channel, 200 MSPS, 40 dollars)

Thank you for your videos !

By: polossatik

polossatik — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 18:31:48 +0000

With “gay” you mean they had more fun?

By: Gary Glitter

Gary Glitter — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 17:28:21 +0000

This product is a piece of shit! I can’t believe dave is giving it a thumbs up. I’ve had two of these fucking things and they both broke. This device ruins capacitors. I tested a bunch of taint capacitors on my motherboard the other day and they all turned gay after touching them with this “probe”.

By: Baron

Baron — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 10:00:32 +0000

Nice one Dave.
I do agree with you that the price is a little high for the average hobbyist. You didn’t say anything about battery life, though you did mention the re-chargable option.

Pity about the 10Khz frquency limit for capacitance measurments. I suspect that it could be changed if the CPU could do the calculations quickly enough at 100Khz.

As far as the voltage and scope display is concerned, maybe a logic probe function would be more useful…

Regards:

By: Jay

Jay — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 04:15:21 +0000

Great review, and thanks for the tutorial also.

By: shafri

shafri — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 16:14:40 +0000

u ar the guru

By: Sebastian Gajate

Sebastian Gajate — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 01:26:11 +0000

G’DAY MATE!!

Excellent review!! Great tweezers!! The price is a big downside to it, but all things considered as you’ve said is probably right for the market that is targeted.
Also if you have enough money to spend on a few of this, it can be an original pair of chopsticks!!! Amazing!! Think about it!! you can mesure the capacitance of your sushi!!
ACE!!

Hooroo!!

By: Wartex

Wartex — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 23:51:07 +0000

you can get it on ebay for $275 shipped. Use make An Offer button, the seller is in Ontario. Probably the only distributor on ebay.

By: Kodon

Kodon — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 22:39:46 +0000

Wow! Nice tweezer! Never heard of them before :O
Unfortunately the price is just too high for me. But maybe it will come down in a few years. But that is one more thing in my wishlist

By: Brian Hoskins

Brian Hoskins — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 21:31:41 +0000

I think you’re right about the price – it’s pretty much out of range for most hobbyists. $300 is probably not an unreasonable amount of money to spend on a good piece of electronics test gear, but with the $300 saved up I think most hobbyists could think of a lot more things they’d rather spend their cash on before they bought an LCR tweezer meter.

I’ve got a Peak Electronics LCR meter which works quite well for most basic tasks. It’s quite cheap, too. If I require any real degree of measurement accuracy then I tend to abandon these sorts of instruments and use a proper bench component analyser. We have plenty of this sort of professional test gear at work so I’m fortunate in that respect.

I agree with “Embedded” about the cover, it’s almost certainly a cover to stop you stabbing yourself when it’s in your pocket.

Thanks for the review. Out of interest, Elektor Electronics did quite a good review of various tweezer LCR meters a couple of issues ago. For anyone considering buying one of these, it’d be worth checking out the back issue or buying just that single article from the elektor website.

Brian

By: Saturation

Saturation — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 17:33:30 +0000

That clip is like a knife sheath mounted on the shoulder. With tweezers spread open it holds itself in the sheath, when you squeeze the tweezer it releases it. Like a knife, just don’t stab yourself in the neck! Its quick to draw, but less quick to sheath.

By: Embedded

Embedded — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 17:30:40 +0000

http://www.advancedevices.com/docs/Bachiochi-221.pdf Circuit Cellar review.

I think the plastic tweezer cover is really to stop you from stabbing yourself.

By: Saturation

Saturation — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 17:08:59 +0000

Great review, as always. Love the ‘tear downs’. I checked it for possible purchase, it runs $300-$600! As much as a Rigol scope. Should be cost effective for high volume troubleshooting considering the time it saves.

By: Todd Harrison

Todd Harrison — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 16:59:09 +0000

Nice video Dave!
I love the product reviews and that bonus tutorial at the end was a great topper! Just what we have come to expect from your super blog.

By: djsb

djsb — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 16:52:06 +0000

It’d be nice if the firmware was upgradeable. Maybe then they could inprove some of features.
Looks like another thing to add to my wishlist and consider for the future.

By: Michael Thompson

Michael Thompson — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 16:07:10 +0000

Nice one Dave.

Kinda makes me wish I was one of those “well heeled” hobbyists!

Really neat piece.

By: Thomas White

Thomas White — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 15:31:22 +0000

You left out one main use for this device and that is debugging. If you work in electronic manufacturing it would be a extremely usefully tool to verify the correct component is installed without having to use a microscope to read the stamped value on that part.