Hello again, and again thank you for the reply.
The fact that you were able to get such low readings at 1kHz is worrying. Admittedly these are NOT SMD components, rather Radial Lead Through Hole components. They have numerous values, I tried some standardized '104' and '103' caps and all of them had (at best) readings of ~28 Ohms ESR at 1kHz.
Like I said, i've used this meter for hundreds of different caps over the years (bought it in 2011) and it's always been accurate, yet every ceramic cap I read is
significantly too high.
47uF Electrolytic = 1.2 Ohms @ 1kHz, where datasheet says 1 ohm.
1nF Ceramic = 27 Ohms @ 1kHz, closest online reference says it should be ~300 mOhms or less.
The only reference I could find (found:
http://sound.whsites.net/articles/capacitors.htm) suggests that 100kHz is a great frequency to test them at, stating that at lower frequencies the Capacitive Reactance swamps meter accuracy with values of less than 10s of uF. I'm thinking more and more that your assessment about frequency of test is quite right. Additionally it would explain why your SMD Tweezers Meter and SMD parts were accurately measured at the lower frequencies where my rather crude meter may simply be being swamped out at these low values.
Given that the meter is accurately measuring the CAPACITY of the caps, I'd think this theory fits the facts. Any thoughts?
Not certain what's going on. Thanks again for taking the time to try to help.