$20 LCR ESR Transistor checker project

[indman]

I have the EZM version of GM328 which I've had for several years and found very useful.
 Can anyone help?

Attention! Only for owners of a clone of EZM GM328!
For a firmware of author's revision the 500-th is higher to you it is necessary to disconnect PD5 port (11pin) ATMega328 from a payment of the display or to use the LCD_SPI_OPEN_COL parameter at compilation. Otherwise you risk to damage the processor as at this port at new revision of a firmware there is a high level (5B) and through a display payment he unites on the ground  that leads to consumption of current up to 100 mA and to heating of the processor. Thanks Karl-Heinz of Kübbeler which helped to solve this problem.

[pleriche]

Please, I would check the electrolytic capacitors...

Thank you Willem52 but that was one of the first things I tried. But if that were the problem it's hard to see how the consumption would drop by around 100mA when I pulled the chip.

[pleriche]

...it is necessary to disconnect PD5 port (the 11pin) ATMega328...

Many thanks @indman - that schematic seems to be that of my device. I bent PD5 (pin 11) so as not to enter the IC socket and the current consumption is normal! It now seems to want to enter a test and calibration mode (It says "Short Probes") so I'll have to sort that out later. I've now cut the track between pin 11 and LCD pin 6. Strange that it worked for a couple of years (occasional use) and only recently failed. The only rational explanation I can think of is that in an act of infinite kindness, my fairy godmother crept into my den while I was asleep and updated the firmware for me.

[Cairong1983]

Hello Everyone, I am new here.

A year ago I bought a Transistor Tester on Aliexpress, Only I had forgotten to look in which language it was, now it turns out that he is in Russian, I have been looking a lot on the internet to see if I can program the Atmega328p Chip on a new one with the English version, As I have read this is possible, I have seen here and there in this forum section references where I can download the relevant files, And also miscellaneous programs downloaded to To upload a new version, but it does not work very well, and since this topic is very big, I do not know where I can find the right way to do this.
Have also looked on youtube how I could do it, but I really do not see how it should be.
Who has and can explain to me clearly how to do it.
An Ardiuno I made the Programmer with Arduino as ISP, the two Atmega328p Chip I have uploaded a bootloader, and then I lose what I have to do and what to use in terms of software. I have downloaded avrdude, Xloader, Win AVR.

Who can help me further?

Richard D

[timelessbeing]

@Cairong
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/$20-lcr-esr-transistor-checker-project/msg810893/#msg810893

[pleriche]

I have the EZM version of GM328 which I've had for several years and found very useful.
 Can anyone help?

Attention! Only for owners of a clone of EZM GM328!
... use the LCD_SPI_OPEN_COL parameter at compilation...

Err, not out of the woods yet. Where is the LCD_SPI_OPEN_COL parameter? I've grepped through all the source (v1.35m) and couldn't see it or anything resembling it.

As I said, I bent pin 11 to disconnect PD5 and it reported a reasonable value for battery voltage, and went into some kind of setup or calibration. I had to leave it for a few hours, but coming back I cut the track between PD5 and LCD pin 6 and bent the ATMega328 pin 11 back, and once again I got the battery empty message! I checked there was no continuity between PD6 and LCD pin 6 but nevertheless bent pin 11 out again. I also noticed PD4 is not used so bent that out in case that was having a similar issue, but no improvement.

Perhaps the chip was damaged. So I programmed my spare chip with a blink program to verify that PD4 - PD7 all worked as outputs, then programmed it with v1.35m (ST7565R bit-bang SPI) which now displays nothing on the screen. Consumption is 24mA. That seemed to work before, albeit with a high current drain through PD5. Maybe I need this LCD_SPI_OPEN_COL - I have to confess I didn't fully understand what you were saying about that.

[madires]

LCD_SPI_OPEN_COL is a feature of the k-firmware. Anyhow, it shouldn't be hard to modify the display driver of the m-firmware to do the same.

[pleriche]

Double-checked Makefile, config.h and config_328.h (don't think I changed anything though) and rebuilt. Since last time I added a 22uF capacitor to the reset pin of the Arduino as ISP (not the target chip) and did make upload.

Previously I couldn't get avr-dude to work on my linux box and had to copy the hex file to Windoze and burn it from there. Probably I only burnt the flash and not the eeprom.

Current consumption is now reasonable, varying between 15 - 20mA.

[ngoctuct]

hi, sorry my english,
Can you send me that firmware?
Thanks

[madires]

You can download a precompiled k-firmware for several tester models at https://www.mikrocontroller.net/svnbrowser/transistortester/Software/trunk/. And the m-firmware has to be compiled by you (see the Clones file for settings for some models).

[ngoctuct]

You can download a precompiled k-firmware for several tester models at https://www.mikrocontroller.net/svnbrowser/transistortester/Software/trunk/. And the m-firmware has to be compiled by you (see the Clones file for settings for some models).

i try some firmware but it not work.

[pleriche]

It looks like yours is GM328A whereas mine is GM328, so my firmware won't work for you. And I don't see a precompiled GM328A on the site quoted by Madires.

Take a look at https://www.elektroda.pl/rtvforum/topic3402823.html - it looks like they may have your firmware at the bottom of the page just before the comments though you may have to work hard with Google Translate (as I did) to understand the Polish and hence register.

Alternatively, compiling from source is quite easy under Linux - the hardest part might be determining which display you have. You just have to edit the Makerfile, config_328.h and config.h.

[madires]

i try some firmware but it not work.

Your tester model seems to be an AY-AT, i.e. mega328_color_kit.

[ngoctuct]

i try some firmware but it not work.

Your tester model seems to be an AY-AT, i.e. mega328_color_kit.

thanks.
there is a problem with the button. when I pressed the push button, the menu was displayed but the functions could not be selected

Gửi từ SM-N950F của tôi bằng cách sử dụng Tapatalk

[ngoctuct]

i try mega328-color-kit. but not work

Gửi từ SM-N950F của tôi bằng cách sử dụng Tapatalk

[madires]

Have you programmed the flash and the eeprom?

[Rooster Cogburn]

Hi all, stupid question incoming.

I bought a version of the tester a couple of years ago:



Really like the thing. I bought this one specifically because I thought it had the nicest looking UI. Very 'graphical', uses the full display instead of a bunch of text squished into the upper-left corner. I've seen there are more capable versions of this device with a signal generator, frequency counter, volt meter, IR decoder and perhaps other stuff (anything neat that's non-obvious?). Would this be a good upgraded version to buy:

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/LCD-GM328A-Transistor-Tester-Diode-Capacitance-ESR-Voltage-Frequency-Meter-PWM-Square-Wave-Signal-Generator-SMT/32812240696.html



? Would I need to update the firmware on it? Would I miss much if I didn't?

Also, is this still the best user manual to introduce me to the new features:

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/$20-lcr-esr-transistor-checker-project/?action=dlattach;attach=236653

?

Thanks!

[madires]

Yep. the AY-AT is a nice clone. You don't have to upgrade the firmware if you're happy with the features, but the open source firmwares (k and m) offer a lot more. The fancy graphics of the modified firmware consume a lot of the flash memory. The firmware of the AY-AT supports just two IR protocols, IIRC. The m-firmware offers about 15 (and four different modulation types).

[Rooster Cogburn]

Didn't even think about the graphics consuming flash, but of course, that makes a lot of sense. So is the AY-AT the unquestionably best ready to order cheap clone or do the other variants at least offer some sort of trade-off that might be better for some? It's really hard to an outsider to understand the differences between all the devices and firmware branches, is there a manual or even some kind of comparison to see what I'd be missing?

[KD0CAC John]

Hay guys ,
I have a couple of these clone / what ever .
I like having more than one , like one at the bench , another in the travel box - around $20+- the prices makes it easy .
I do like the graphics - more internal info on device being tested , also the graphics may miss-label a defective component , so another indicator of failure .
I hand not thought about the " taking up memory " , just wondering how much performance / capabilities having the graphics takes away ?
Thanks again

[madires]

Didn't even think about the graphics consuming flash, but of course, that makes a lot of sense. So is the AY-AT the unquestionably best ready to order cheap clone or do the other variants at least offer some sort of trade-off that might be better for some? It's really hard to an outsider to understand the differences between all the devices and firmware branches, is there a manual or even some kind of comparison to see what I'd be missing?

There's no perfect clone. If you want all the hardware options you have to build a tester yourself. You'll find the documentation for the k-firmware at https://www.mikrocontroller.net/svnbrowser/transistortester/Doku/trunk/pdftex/english/ (download the archive and extract ttester.pdf). And the m-firmware includes a README file with all details.

[Rooster Cogburn]

I often find that long-running projects are quite impenetrable for outsiders who have not been following along from the beginning. For instance, try to learn about the xbox/playstation modding scene. It's all obvious if you've been into this stuff for 10 years, but if you just try to get a handle on things all you'll get is stuff like "It's easy, you'll have to unprotect your Virtual EEPROM with the Enigmah Engineering disc ftp'ed to your F-partition right after TSOP modding your 1.4 board with the nulled out UnleashX NDure mod patcher through Chimp while hot-swapping your IDE cable. The procedure is describe at <link to deleted forum post>".

I generally try to RTFM and google before I ask a question as writing it and then having other people read and respond to it is a waste of time for everybody. But here with this transistor tester after >1h of Googling I'm not really getting anywhere. It's such a rats nest of forum threads, AliExpress products, random stuff on GitHub, various PDF files, READMEs, SVN repos etc. I have no idea what's outdated or who's who and what any of this actually means.

Like, I've heard of this mysterious "m-firmware" and a google search gets me to this:

https://github.com/svn2github/transistortester/tree/master/Software/Markus

Apparently the README should explain things. It does, if you already know the history of the project and who Karl-Heinz is and what he's been up to. Seems like he wrote this:

https://www.mikrocontroller.net/attachment/143813/TTester_096k.pdf

which is neat and detailed, but it has 2012 in the title, so no idea if that still has any relevance to the current state of the code and whatever I can buy on AliExpress today.

There's some info on https://www.mikrocontroller.net, but even that doesn't really help in telling the different hardware platforms apart, getting some kind of idea what the differences between the software releases are and what to actually buy.

Unless I'm being extremely dense here, the only way to know what the differences between the hardware and software releases are is either

- Spend days re-tracing the entire history of this project and read hundreds of pages of forum threads
- Ask the obvious questions (probably happens once a week) and hope somebody has pity on you

I think it would be super awesome if somebody in the know could just spend 5min writing a basic 'Buyers FAQ' with a last-updated date on it that just tells people what to buy. If there's more than a single obvious choice then maybe a paragraph of text and a little table on what the meaningful differences and trade-offs are between the different hardware / software releases so the buyer can make an informed choice. That probably be enough for 99% of the people looking to buy this thing and hopefully cut down the amount of repetitive stupid questions.

[madires]

I hand not thought about the " taking up memory " , just wondering how much performance / capabilities having the graphics takes away ?

It depends on the size of the bitmaps and the functions to display them, also functions for drawing lines and so on. Basic graphics support including a font could be around 6 or 8 kB. Any additional stuff will eat more. BTW, k and m-firmware can display symbols with pinout too. And if you like to go really fancy the m-firmware supports a touchscreen interface (ATmega 644 or 1284 recommended).

[madires]

Like, I've heard of this mysterious "m-firmware" and a google search gets me to this:

https://github.com/svn2github/transistortester/tree/master/Software/Markus

The svn2github service was shut down a few months ago, so the mirror at github is outdated. The SVN I've mentioned earlier is the official repo and it has all the stuff, also the current documentation.

I think it would be super awesome if somebody in the know could just spend 5min writing a basic 'Buyers FAQ' with a last-updated date on it that just tells people what to buy. If there's more than a single obvious choice then maybe a paragraph of text and a little table on what the meaningful differences and trade-offs are between the different hardware / software releases so the buyer can make an informed choice. That probably be enough for 99% of the people looking to buy this thing and hopefully cut down the amount of repetitive stupid questions.

That would be great! I'm busy with the m-firmware.

[grantb5]

I think it would be super awesome if somebody in the know could just spend 5min writing a basic 'Buyers FAQ' with a last-updated date on it that just tells people what to buy. If there's more than a single obvious choice then maybe a paragraph of text and a little table on what the meaningful differences and trade-offs are between the different hardware / software releases so the buyer can make an informed choice. That probably be enough for 99% of the people looking to buy this thing and hopefully cut down the amount of repetitive stupid questions.

Yeah I'm in the same boat. I bought a TC-1 in a plastic case off eBay and googling brought me here.  I can tell it's a slightly different beast and was thinking of getting my feet wet on the state-of-the-art for this project as it is today. Totally lost ...