Esr meter

[Ranger14]

 I am looking to build a cheap but good quality esr meter..I don't have the money to buy the blue esr meter and saw W2aew made a great one but parts are no longer avaible .Also I would love update his design but I don't possess the skills yet since I am a noob. The purpose of this build is to be able to test caps in circuit ..So could you guys suggest a qaulity design to build???

[nowlan]

http://kripton2035.free.fr/esr-repository.html

what is wrong with the ebay cheapies? They dont do in circuit?

[thejoggingmat]

There are some things which, all economics considered, are much better off just being purchased instead of being constructed (unless you're doing it for the fun/heck/lulz).
An ESR meter is one of them.
There are 328p based ones which measure rather accurately costing less than £10. More than accurate enough for the most part (unless you're working with, say 75ppm resistors?).

However, the web does have some Arduino based ESR meter builds of you really wish to go down that path. They however are essentially the same thing as the 328p meters on evilBay.

[Mephitus]

How about I plug one done by board member Jay_Diddy_B. The 5 transistor ESR meter. Pretty slim on parts and extremely cheap components.
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/projects/5-transistor-esr-meter-design/msg171364/#msg171364

[JacquesBBB]

Why dont you look to this one,
widely available on ebay, either as a kit, or already mounted, very well documented,
and very useful.

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/$20-lcr-esr-transistor-checker-project/

[mauroh]

Why dont you look to this one,
widely available on ebay, either as a kit, or already mounted, very well documented,
and very useful.

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/$20-lcr-esr-transistor-checker-project/

+1 I just built this variant of that project http://www.banggood.com/DIY-M12864-Graphics-Version-Transistor-Tester-Kit-LCR-ESR-PWM-With-Case-p-997023.html
and it perfectly fit my needs, although I'm curious to know how it compare against a "proper" instrument.

Mauro

[w2aew]

I am looking to build a cheap but good quality esr meter..I don't have the money to buy the blue esr meter and saw W2aew made a great one but parts are no longer avaible .Also I would love update his design but I don't possess the skills yet since I am a noob. The purpose of this build is to be able to test caps in circuit ..So could you guys suggest a qaulity design to build???

I don't know of any parts in my ESR meter that aren't available.  If you have trouble getting the AD8032 op amp, then you can substitute just about any decent rail to rail op amp in its place.  The CD4049 can be replaced by any modern CMOS hex inverter, etc.

[Ranger14]

I have a couple nano laying around and thought about using one but every design say not for use in circuit. I am looking to measure caps in circuit ... Will look into W2AEW design again and there was a nice analog design in the list posted above that would fit my needs but would have to use chinese panel meter and not sure quailty for the intended use???

I am looking to build a cheap but good quality esr meter..I don't have the money to buy the blue esr meter and saw W2aew made a great one but parts are no longer avaible .Also I would love update his design but I don't possess the skills yet since I am a noob. The purpose of this build is to be able to test caps in circuit ..So could you guys suggest a qaulity design to build???

I don't know of any parts in my ESR meter that aren't available.  If you have trouble getting the AD8032 op amp, then you can substitute just about any decent rail to rail op amp in its place.  The CD4049 can be replaced by any modern CMOS hex inverter, etc.

I will have to check it out .. I was hoping you would update the design lol.  Right now I more or less a basic understanding of electronics and wouldn't even know how to find parts that would match and the circuit not modded..

[JacquesBBB]

I am looking to measure caps in circuit ...

No ESR meter whatsoever will be able to discriminate two caps in parallel in a circuit. On the other hand, the simple
meter based on Atmega328 does a very good job   for in-circuit measures when its possible.
You have to be cautious on the interpretation of the results, but it is very useful.

but would have to use chinese panel meter and not sure quailty for the intended use???

If you take a kit like this one,
http://www.ebay.com/itm/DIY-KITS-M328-Transistor-Tester-LCR-Diode-Capacitance-ESR-meter-PWM-Square-wave-/221924411728?hash=item33abb9c950:g:lWUAAOSw14xWLz2i

you will master totally the quality of the fabrication. You get the kit for less (13$)  than what it would cost you to make the PCB
(in China  of course,  as most of the PCB  for hobby use are made there)

The design is not from China,  and is totally documented in
http://www.mikrocontroller.net/wikifiles/8/8f/Ttester_eng111k.pdf

Right now I more or less a basic understanding of electronics and wouldn't even know how to find parts that would match and the circuit not modded..

To build the kit and try to understand how it works by reading  carefully the 103 page documentation of
Karl-Heinz Huebbeler, will definitively improve your knowledge in electronics.

You will then be able to make  your own improvements  in the hardware or software (which is also available online).

I would advise to first use the provided already programmed  Atmega328 chip, and then make your own experiments on a
new chip that you program by yourself.

[MrSlack]

Those cheap AVR transistor testers are awesome. Got mine yesterday finally after a 30 day wait from aliexpress. Checked ESR on the old caps in my scope that i swapped out and they were reading ~15-30 ohms! That's where my ripple came from...

[Ranger14]

How about I plug one done by board member Jay_Diddy_B. The 5 transistor ESR meter. Pretty slim on parts and extremely cheap components.
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/projects/5-transistor-esr-meter-design/msg171364/#msg171364

Does the unit work with in circuit caps and how hard would it be to grab a pcb

[Jay_Diddy_B]

Hi,

The 5 transistor ESR meter work in circuit. It does require that the capacitors are discharged first.

I have only ever built the one board that is shown in the thread. It uses surface mount parts. Some of the forum members have built a thru-hole version. I designed a thru-hole version shown in this message:

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/projects/5-transistor-esr-meter-design/msg412753/#msg412753

I have not built this board.

I presented another design for an ESR meter in this thread:

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/projects/esr-meter-adapter-design-and-construction/msg341177/#msg341177

I did have some boards made for this project.

I document the build process in this message:

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/projects/esr-meter-adapter-design-and-construction/msg341177/#msg341177


I might order some more, but China is closed for the Spring Festival.

The ESR adapter is extremely well protected and can measure the ESR of a capacitor without discharging the capacitor first.

Regards,

Jay_Diddy_B

[JacquesBBB]

Does the unit work with in circuit caps

Let me repeat it again :


No ESR meter whatsoever will be able to discriminate two caps in parallel in a circuit !