$20 LCR ESR Transistor checker project

[madires]

Is there anywhere FW 1.11k can be downloaded?

1.11k is the current version under development and can be found at http://www.mikrocontroller.net/svnbrowser/transistortester/Software/trunk/ (click "Download GNU tarball" at the bottom).

Never mind, found it. Currently 1.16
http://www.mikrocontroller.net/svnbrowser/transistortester/Software/Markus/

That's 1.16m and it supports text displays only. The UI is a little bit different, some tests and measurements are done in a different way, functionality is nearly the same and it offers a few small extras, like detection of TRIACs' MT1 and MT2.

[BlueBill]

I've ordered one of the text versions, the graphics seemed unnecessary.

[rob77]

had one atmega644 in DIP40 around...got no other real use for it.. so I’ve built the tester myself with that atmega644 and lm336-2.5 reference and a mc34063 step up to 30V + 1mA current source  for zener testing.

[malch]

I got the one someone recommended. It works with USB power and no battery. [I had to try it right away]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?x-yt-ts=1422327029&x-yt-cl=84838260&v=UbOMqA2AOIk&feature=player_embedded


I think I should have bought one with a 9 volt battery and larger screen, now that I have it in my hand.

Does this use a rechargeable lithium battery?

edit jan 29: Seller replied yes.

[Pixel26]

Hi,

I just buy a transistor tester 328p:



And i read earlier in this topic, it was possible to flash with this firmware "mega328_st7565" for a better accuracy.

 I really do not know where to enter in Avrdude, can you help for for the fuse parameters please ? I use a Usbasp. 

[Pixel26]

Hi,

I found what I needed:

Hfuse: 0xD9
Efuse: 0xFC
Lfuse: 0xF7

But for efuse my tester not want this new value, i leave on 0x04.

I also had to change the makefile. My screen is displayed nothing, the values that I changed:


-For blank screen:

LCD_ST7565_RESISTOR_RATIO = 5
CFLAGS += -DFONT_6X8

-For the display back normal to 180 ° I desactivate:

CFLAGS += -DLCD_ST7565_H_FLIP=1
CFLAGS += -DLCD_ST7565_V_FLIP=1

-And for the measurement of the battery voltage, i change value "133" by "66":

CFLAGS += -DBAT_NUMERATOR=66


I noticed that the tester with the backlight consume +- 115 ma !!!  And cutting its power supply consume +- 15ma, much better 


That is, if it can help others.


Ps: sorry for my bad english, I hope so this is a minimum comprehensible 

[Mr Smiley]

Hi,

I found what I needed:

Hfuse: 0xD9
Efuse: 0xFC
Lfuse: 0xF7

But for efuse my tester not want this new value, i leave on 0x04.

I had the same confusing problem with the efuse, asking it to be set to 0xfc gave an error saying it was now showing 0x04.

I went to one of the many on line fuse calculators and put in 0xfc which gave an indication of which fuses where being set. I then put in a value of 0x04 and the result was that the same fuses were set for for 0x04 as they were for 0xfc 

 

[jimmc]

The problem is that the five high bits which are not implemented are being set to '1' by the fuse calculator and read as '0' by the AVRDude.
AND either with 07 (0000 0111) to mask off the unused bits and they're the same

xxxx x100
1111 0100     FC
0000 0100     04

Jim

[Danielw]

What would normally blow up if you by accident connect a charged cap on this? I thought it was the atmega but I tried connect 3,3v direcly to ISP connector and it started up. It is the FISH8840 version I've got.

It does not start up with 9v connected.

Edit: It just started up by itself! But stuck at 'testing' and shuts off after only 1-3 sek. Hmmm...

Best regards

[madires]

What would normally blow up if you by accident connect a charged cap on this? I thought it was the atmega but I tried connect 3,3v direcly to ISP connector and it started up. It is the FISH8840 version I've got.

It does not start up with 9v connected.

The Vcc pin of the ISP header is directly connected to the circuit's Vcc. Please see the schematic in Karl-Heinz' documentation at http://www.mikrocontroller.net/svnbrowser/transistortester/Doku/tags/english/ (click "Download GNU tarball" at the bottom).

[mmatic]

Which one is best buy right now?

This one on the link below?
http://www.ebay.com/itm/251334183807?_trksid=p2059210.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

[pukje]

This weekend i installed winavr, and compiled the source. My hex output has a larger size,
I tested the makefile in the mega328 directory.
The precompiled version is 65783 bytes, my compiled version is 77859 bytes.
( I used the make all option in the programmers notepad).

After that i compiled the software on my centos machine, and that hex file was
also bigger then the original, this hex file was 77622 bytes.
My tester is in the mail, i orderd him last week, so i can't test the hex file
at this moment.

What i'm a doing wrong

[eas]

Which one is best buy right now?

This one on the link below?
http://www.ebay.com/itm/251334183807?_trksid=p2059210.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

I ordered from this listing.

It was packed well, shipped quickly and arrived in Seattle less than a week after I ordered it. Its based on the same EZM Studios board as the one you linked to, but fitted with a larger graphical display, which, as I understand it, is supported by the mainline firmware. I haven't tried  yet, but I have another ATMega on the way to experiment with.

I think its advantages of the EZM Studios variants  are that it is relatively close to stock hardware and software, with the hidden modes already enabled, has a socketed MCU, and most of the components are through-hole for easier tweaking. I think the main downside is that the SMD contact pattern isn't great, and some people have suggested replacing the caps.

[JacquesBBB]

@eas

It seems that you have the same board as mine.
In this case, you can compile the  setting of the Makefile  that is described  in my previous posts
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/$20-lcr-esr-transistor-checker-project/799/
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/$20-lcr-esr-transistor-checker-project/800/
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/$20-lcr-esr-transistor-checker-project/801/

and in mojoe  post to get the screen right
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/$20-lcr-esr-transistor-checker-project/804/

In summary   :

In the makefile,

comment the two line s
#CFLAGS += -DLCD_ST7565_H_FLIP=1
#CFLAGS += -DLCD_ST7565_V_FLIP=1

The font is better with
CFLAGS += -DFONT_6X8

Correct the contrast with
LCD_ST7565_RESISTOR_RATIO = 5
instead of
LCD_ST7565_RESISTOR_RATIO = 4

and  To get the double-spaced lines,  in the file lcd-routines.c:

Change:
lcd_set_cursor(1,0)
lcd_set_cursor(2,0)
lcd_set_cursor(3,0)

To:
lcd_set_cursor(2,0);
lcd_set_cursor(4,0);
lcd_set_cursor(6,0)

Jacques

[eas]

@eas

It seems that you have the same board as mine.
[...]

Yes, thanks! I've already made note of all those posts, but it will be very helpful for others. 

Someone contacted me privately asking about how the GM328 compared to other versions I tried. I'm part way through editing a video and blog post on just that topic, but I thought I'd add a little more here:

That meter is my favorite of the three I've tried. In casual inspection, it seems to correctly identify every component I've tried, where as the others I tried have had trouble with some depending on the orientation.

I also tried the largest screen Fish8840 version, and this 91Make version. In retrospect, the largest screen is pointless, in my opinion, and the graphics for components are too "heavy," which makes them hard to make sense of, a problem for the diagrams of simple BJTs and even more so small signal MOSFET.

I like the graphics/ui on the 91Make version best of all, but the firmware seems somewhat dated, doesn't have the full feature set enabled, and the hardware isn't hack friendly -- all surface mount, and to make use of, what I assume are the holes for the programming header, will require either pogopins, or detaching the LCD mounted directly to the PCB.

I plan to compile the latest open source firmware and install it on the Fish8840 tester, taking advantage of what Moejoe learned.

[hapless]

I also tried the largest screen Fish8840 version, and this 91Make version. In retrospect, the largest screen is pointless, in my opinion, and the graphics for components are too "heavy," which makes them hard to make sense of, a problem for the diagrams of simple BJTs and even more so small signal MOSFET.

The firmware that you compile will have considerably "lighter" graphics. As for the value of the graphical screen, there are at least two advantages: You can choose any size font (try CFLAGS += -DFONT_8X16 if you need glasses to read the screen), and you can use any character set, which becomes a huge issue with text displays that have no international characters (I want to give one of these as a gift to someone who speaks no English and would have to bend over backwards to get a 16x2 display that supports the characters from the right alphabet).

[coromonadalix]

noob questions

Under Windows 8.1 x64     how can i compile the makefile,  i know nothing about this   what softwares do i have to install, WinAvr ? AvrDude ? Atmel studio ?

i have a atmega8 based tester, the first post image model ...   (avr rc crystal), updated to an mega328 model with 16x2 lcd  with the 1.11k trunk / mega328 section   works ok

i have read a lot of this thread  ... 

Wanted to use the 1.16m version, (since its supposed to be text only version),  but it stalls when displaying  zenner voltage / something display show 16.5 volts, the button powers up the tester,  but it doesn't shutdown unless i remove the 9v cell


Found this : http://www.avrtester.tode.cz/index.php?p=firmware    already compiled hex and eep files   may help you guys

[samnmax]

Just a warning for anyone buying one of those chinese clones, the one that says "MTester V2.07" "By Efan &HaoQixin". I bought one from ebay for 15€, and it didn't work very well, it was slow and crashed with some components. Poking around with the scope I found that the crystal oscillator was not used! 

I soldered the ISP pins and connected to the Bus Pirate, avrdude said ATmega328P low fuse was 0x62 (default value). That means: "use internal RC oscillator" and "divide clock by 8" 

I tried to change the fuse but it was locked. I had to extract a copy of the flash and eeprom, erase the chip, set the fuse (I think I used 0xF7) and upload eeprom and flash again.

Afterwards, it worked fine! Somebody must have forgotten to program the fuse. Other than that I think it's very useful for its price.

[madires]

Under Windows 8.1 x64     how can i compile the makefile,  i know nothing about this   what softwares do i have to install, WinAvr ? AvrDude ? Atmel studio ?

The Makefile is used by the 'make' tool to build the firmware, it's some kind of special script. Atmel Studio supports external Makefiles (see GCC Project options and configuration tab).

Wanted to use the 1.16m version, (since its supposed to be text only version),  but it stalls when displaying  zenner voltage / something display show 16.5 volts, the button powers up the tester,  but it doesn't shutdown unless i remove the 9v cell

To exit the m-firmware's zener tool please push the test button twice (two short presses). There's a readme file in the source package explaining the differences to the k-firmware including the UI.

BTW: 1.17m was realeased two days ago (several minor improvements and fixes).

[hapless]

[...]I had to extract a copy of the flash and eeprom[...]

Would you mind sharing them? I'd like to try this firmware on my EZMStudio device. Really wish they'd publish the sources.

[samnmax]

[...]I had to extract a copy of the flash and eeprom[...]

Would you mind sharing them? I'd like to try this firmware on my EZMStudio device. Really wish they'd publish the sources.

No problem, here they are.

[hapless]

Much appreciated, thank you. From the looks of it, I am not the only one interested in them. I did a quick test and the firmware seems to work (shuts down the tester because the voltage is too low), but I get nothing on the screen, so it will need some modifications  , which, unfortunately, I won't be able to get started on for at least a month. If I manage to get this firmware to work on my tester, I will post the changed files.

[gtroc71]

Could this device be run from an A23 12v battery?
Would like to make as compact as possible
Thanks

[JacquesBBB]

Could this device be run from an A23 12v battery?

As there is a 5V linear regulator on these boards (AS1117 5.0 V on mine), it will not be very efficient
to power it with 12V. Everything above 7V is wasted.
9V is much more adapted.

[madires]

Could this device be run from an A23 12v battery?
Would like to make as compact as possible

I think so, but that battery won't last long (about 1/10 of a 9V one). And you should disable the LCD backlight.