Looking for a ESR meter

[robsims]

Hi. i'm going to order a Peak LCR45 meter to test capacitance, inductance and resistors. I also want a ESR meter. My budget is around$50. Anyone know a good ESR meter i can purchase from a store in the USA

[robsims]

Saw a Peak ESR70 meter

https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/peak-electronic-design-limited/ESR70/9687220

Please share you're experience if you have one

[Doctorandus_P]

The DER EE 5000 I mentioned in your other thread also does ESR.

[robsims]

Hi Doctorandus_P

I'm going to look at the  DER EE 5000. Do you own one yourself?
https://www.amazon.com/DER-EE-ELECTRICAL-INSTRUMENT-CECOMINOD066433/dp/B00S298KJO/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8

It's an all in one meter though. If it it malfunctions after sometime i lose my complete $244

I i buy a separate Peak LCR45 and a Peak ESR70, if one fails, i still have the other one. And the Peak is UK made.
If you have the DER EE 5000, how long do you have it?

[rsjsouza]

This is a very expensive price for a DER EE DE-5000. eBay has the same meter at a much cheaper price.

[robsims]

Ok guys Ebay has the DER EE DE-5000 for a lower price but almost all the sellers keep saying "last one". I don't think i trust the sellers from Ebay. What you guys think? Send me a link/seller you guys trust on Ebay

[rsjsouza]

eBay generally has a great policy of returns/refunds, so you can return or get refunded for a seller that tries to take you for a ride.

However, are you visiting US and would like to use the opportunity to buy one while you are here? (your flag from Suriname hints that for me - as a Brazilian I did this many times when travelling here). If so, then Amazon would be a better choice as all the cheaper models I could find are shipped directly from Japan (where it is manufactured) and would take quite some time to arrive here.

[robsims]

rsjsouza, no i'm not visiting US soon. But ok i'll buy from a seller on ebay. I'm still waiting for Doctorandus_P answers. Many thanks guys for helping me out

[pete g]

hi, i've built just about all the esr meters published, both analog and digital. why dont you build your own?

[robsims]

Pete_g no, i'm not going to build one now. I don't have the time, still learning and i want to do some repairwork. In the near future i will built one myself

[nightfire]

I ordered my DER EE DE5000 about one year ago via ebay from a seller directly in japan, that was accordingly to the reviews deemed trustworthy. Went well, got all of the accessoires too for a decent price- my ebay history says about 115 US$ plus import tax (19% in germany, and probably plus 12,5 Euros for the service of the shipping company to do the paperwork for me)

Now the price has risen: https://www.ebay.de/itm/224073370894   and there is no stock left... :-(

But other japanese sellers have stock in minimal amounts.

So, if you are comfortable overseas and willing to maybe check for yourself what the eventual customs rules (as in: import tax) are, you could go for that option- especially when there is a complete offer including the tweezers and adapters for crocodile clamps.
(If you don't need this stuff, because you already have some crocodile clips for 4mm test leads, you can safely omit those)

[robsims]

'm going to order one from ebay  with all the accessories. Many thanks Doctorandus_P

[mawyatt]

We also ordered awhile ago from Japan and the total price was ~$142 with alligator & tweezer clips, see now the price has jumped!!

The DE-5000 uses the same technique as the much more expensive lab grade LCR meters (sine wave excitation with synchronous sampling), and this is mostly contained in a unique chip-set that does all the critical precision work.

A while back we compared the DE-5000 to our TH2830 and here are a few examples, the results speak for themselves:

Component Type        TH2830 LRC/Esr                    DE5000  LRC/Esr

1uF film @ 100Hz       1.009222/0.398                1.0101/0.0
            @ 1KHz          1.00896/0.0181               1.0097/0.12
100nF film @ 1KHz      102.057/6.68                   102.18/5.99
                @ 10KHz    101.107/1.526                 101.28/1.36
                @ 100KHz  99.5913/0.289                 99.52/0.28
2.2nF film @ 10KHz     2.22894/68.2                   2.231/62.4
               @ 100Kz      2.18710/11.435              2.193/10.72
470uF Elect @ 100Hz    439.802/0.13115            440.6/0.1
                  @1KHz       427.032/0.06615            424.0/0.05
100uF Elect @ 100Hz    94.5066/0.69069            94.63/0.67
                  @ 1KHz     91.6142/0.43874             91.72/0.42
10uH Wirewound @ 100KHz 9.39761/0.1754        9.3866/0.13
470uH Wirewound @ 100KHz 449.188/3.8841      449.8/5.1
0.1 ohm @ DCR           0.101054                         0.11
1            @ DCR          1.00540                           1.01
10          @ DCR          9.97583                            9.97
100        @ DCR          99.7219                           99.61
1K          @ DCR         998.001                            998.0     


A word of caution regarding this type of instrument, you can not blindly use it like a DMM or component tester if you expect good results. You need to understand the method of measurement, the device expected response (like parallel resonance of an inductor), and the magnitude of the expected impedance and how this affects the measurements. For example, you can't expect to accurately measure a 10uH inductor at 100Hz, nor a 470uF capacitor at 100KHz.

Best,   

[PushUp]

Do you want to double-check the values, in order to pick the best one for a important project or do you need a handy device to repair things and want to get to know the right direction?

When you quickly wanna check some caps on a mainboard in circuit, getting Capacitance-value plus its ESR, so that you immediately can estimate its condition, I would prefer the Atlas Peak ESR 70 gold or plus (the former model)...

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/peak-atlas-esr70-gold-or-alternative/


Have you already watched this video, where it is shown that there are some drawbacks using a LCR-Meter in circuit with lower values:

EEVblog 1474 - Can You Measure Capacitors IN Circuit?

h*****tps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uds-wLoaZmA


In addition to the Atlas Peak models, I have the Voltcraft LCR-400 (it has several clones), which is the one and only device I hardly use, because that's far too much trouble for me, for just getting a quick info, simply too awkward!

...just my experience, giving you another point of view... 


Cheers! 

[strawberry]

import tax (19% in germany, and probably plus 12,5 Euros for the service of the shipping company to do the paperwork for me)

yeah, that one paper

[Doctorandus_P]

As I already wrote to you in that other thread:

I started some 15+ years ago by building an LM311 based LC meter, because real LCR meters were too expensive for me. This meter worked quite good, but with no other reference, I could only compare it with the values printed on inductors itself, but they always matched close enough, and series connections of inductors also turned out correct. Later I added a few of the "transistor tester" gadgets to my equipment and both meters agree with each other close enough.
I was tempted to buy the DER EE 5000 when it became available. It's quite reasonable in price, and performance is comparable with meters twice it's price. I'm not on a tight budget myself, and I could easily buy it now, but the simple fact is that the combination of the homebrew LM311 meter and the transistor tester is simply good enough for my purposes, and that is the only reason I never bought the DER EE 5000 myself.

I also wrote there you can get the bare DER EE 5000 below EUR 100, so you can save quite a lot by not including all accessories.
I do recommend to buy it with the accessories you want, becase buying them separately drives up the price a lot.
Alternatively, you could make some of the accessories yourself, especially if you have more time then money.

There is a catch though, if you also want to use it for ESR measurement.
Dedicated ESR meters are usually relatively simply devices. They often generate an AC current of 100KHz or so and then measure the (quite low) voltage drop over the capacitor, and because this voltage is usually 100mV or lower,and therefore the ESR of capacitors can often be measured in-circuit with good enough accuracy to find defective electrolytics.

Der EE 5000 uses another measurement method, and I'm not sure if it can measure the ESR of electrolytics in circuit.

[taste_tester]

Ok guys Ebay has the DER EE DE-5000 for a lower price but almost all the sellers keep saying "last one". I don't think i trust the sellers from Ebay. What you guys think? Send me a link/seller you guys trust on Ebay

Some sellers offer free returns
These are the safe ones to get.
I tried to save a couple dollars (not even $10!) buying  from a seller without free returns offered, it was defective and the return process is a huge headache with the seller trying to pull little tricks on me constantly.
I bet if i bought one with free returns it would not be showed up with a problem because the seller would not want that risk of return.

I bought an EVB ESR meter which i will pair either with a replacement DE-5000 or Atlas LCR45
since i don't measure ESR often but if i want to quickly diagnose a large PCB with lots of caps, i'll use it.

[nightfire]

import tax (19% in germany, and probably plus 12,5 Euros for the service of the shipping company to do the paperwork for me)

yeah, that one paper

Thats true, but in my case it would involve me as a private customer to drive through the whole city to the customs office, wait my turn, maybe have some discussion with some people there if the declaration of the goods are really in the right category, and then pay the money in cash...
(and as I do not own a car, it is an effort of several hours to get there and back)
So getting the parcel service (I think DHL was it back then) to do this and deliver the stuff quite in time in contrast to the slow treatment when you do it yourself was nice...
(My record at begin of corona in 2020 was an order at sunday german time for some used nikon lens from a japanese seller, and at thursday I had it on my desk, as I had them deliver that to my work adress, da I think Fedex did the paperwork)

[mawyatt]

Der EE 5000 uses another measurement method, and I'm not sure if it can measure the ESR of electrolytics in circuit.

Yes it can measure in circuit C and ESR, just checked a populated PCB and the electrolytic cap readings were reasonable. The measurement voltage ranges from 1.8VPP for very small capacitance to under 50mVPP for large capacitance, so for large electrolytic caps the measurement voltage is small enough not to forward bias any PN junctions.

Best,

[Doctorandus_P]

Yes it can measure in circuit C and ESR, ... so for large electrolytic caps the measurement voltage is small enough not to forward bias any PN junctions.

That's good to know.
It also does not have to be very accurate. Testing Electrolytics is mostly a Keep or replace test.

==========================================

I have not bought stuff from Ebay for years, but plenty of stuff via Aliexpress.

Here in the EU we have a simplified VAT system for packets upto EUR150, and this system has been in place for a year or more.
It basically means you buy a packet with VAT included and the seller handles all the paperwork.
The only caveat is that the seller has to do that paperwork. If he's not into that system it does not work. But I've bougt plenty of stuff from Ali and it always seems to work.

I've had a few more expensive items via Ali. One EUR 450 order was shipped from Germany, so no problems there, Another order was over EUR500, but directly from China and I had to pay some EUR120 extra to get it delivered, and this seems reasonable in comparison.

A few years ago It was bonkers. I bought a EUR23 item and they wanted EUR19 extra for shipping / handling / taxes and I refused to pay that, so even though the package reached the Netherlands I never had it in my hands and also lost my money on that.

The DER EE 5000 is a bit complicated. It comes from Japan, I do not know sellers in the EU, but because of it's price to performance ratio it's worth some extra hassle.

[nightfire]

In my experience, even sellers that specialize in used goods (I am an amateur photographer and bought for some projects some 40 year old Nikon gear) in Japan have their stuff together.
All the times I bought things via ebay from japanese sellers with a reasonable amount of good reviews that indicate buyers from outside japan I never had a total failure. In fact, most of the stuff was faster on my desk than some things that I ordered on the same day via ebay from a german seller...

In contrast, some years ago I had some bad experiences with chinese sellers, as customs was getting behind the trick of strange declarations as "gift" or below 35 Euros, which was back then tax exempt- and if the paperwork looked fishy or not complete, you had to show up there and go through some lengthy process- one day I had some polarizing filters for my camera, and I went through the big list of appropriate codes (and the tax that had to be paid- standard 19% sales tax or 19% plus additional tax due to the group...) and had to demonstrate how to mount the filter on my camera lens to have proof that this would count as optical accessory...

[robsims]

Okay, in fact i want a LCR meter to accurate measure capacitors, inductors and resistors. I also want a ESR meter to check the condition of a loose capacitor or a capacitor on a board when troubleshooting. At first i thought of buying the Peak LCR45 and the Peak ESR70. If one failed i still have the other one. These two meters would cost me $268 in total. Then Doctorandus_P said i could get a Der EE DE5000 for a low price on Ebay. Ok i agree for little over $100 i get an LCR/ESR meter to do everything i would have done with the Peak LCR45 and ESR70. So i'm going for the Der EE DE5000

taste tester said "Some sellers offer free returns. These are the safe ones to get". Found two sellers

https://www.ebay.com/itm/224253889293?epid=20032261934&hash=item343692cb0d:g:9iQAAOSwUspgbT5C

https://www.ebay.com/itm/383808004139?epid=24032160007&hash=item595cbd602b:g:u0oAAOSwlARfrVqN&amdata=enc%3AAQAHAAAA4DwRex3UZgOqpz2D7CaQpJmrA2aJy5TEwvabPcSQh6MV9mISIg888SLjhaX6TVAg1thluVgEaI0rfbm8yhtv29j3Y9p4cPiWeankU6uotDJGUGZNaHdjDduj1Pc%2FNudntHSfPMq1HCXs%2FcW8urd9UIMzIdn0T2ev0qZUMeyIcv7%2BV8cb2d8jAO9EffNXTUWMOKvUq3MC3xuiGPbTyHTDIDVZqfZ8TLkSDMmvhGC5zeu%2BbGUKQz%2B%2FUEIHawSIO5EPGk1g6v64D5pTO3PiVTGdxQD02loIKcxVW1Ps6KBMRFmX%7Ctkp%3ABFBM6Pqr0qpg

 Any other suggestions before i buy and make a huge mistake? Many thanks

[nightfire]

The first one (tool.japan) is the one I got my DE5000 from- good experience back then, even asked me if I would be 100% sure with my choices after ordering to avoid costly mistakes with shipping.

[robsims]

Okay i'll order it from them thanks nightfire

[robsims]

On the DER DE5000 meter do you need all the TL21, TL-22 and TL-23 accessories? or do i need one of them or can i buy the body only and use standard banana input jacks with alligator clips, the ones that i already have? Please help

[armandine2]

You could make up your own test leads.

[edited - to not mislead!]

 

[nightfire]

Basically you can use the DE5000 with the existing 4mm cables and jacks you already have. The Tweezers are nice, as they use a 4-wire technology and therefore are compensated. But if you do not do much SMD parts, or small resistors, you can omit them.
Same for the TL-21 croco clips- those also use 4-wire technoligy and internat shielding to give precise results, but are not initially needed.

You simply have to keep in mind, that using standard 4mm cables will also introduce some additional resistance and a bit of capacitance to the measuring circuit, and you should use the internal zeroing mechanism of the DE5000 to compensate for this.

[armandine2]

[I'll check if] the 2 banana inputs can give a 4-wire measurement?

edited to "take it apart"

[Shock]

I'd buy 2 of the TL-21 and upgrade them to make good pair of good kelvin clips and tweezers.

I prefer owning a separate LCR meter and having a dedicated ESR meter for messing around in circuit. Wasn't planned on purpose but I've ended up with several of the Bob Parker models. His latest one called the Blue2 goes down to 1 milliohm resolution, mine are the 10 milliohm models.

[robsims]

Ok thank you nightfire

[armandine2]

yes it appears to be split in two

[Shock]

The adapters break out the guard trace wire as well so you can make guarded test leads, this is why I'd go for the TL-21 over the using the sockets. Split pinned sockets are way more trouble and expense to mess with.

This thread here has some ideas, but I'd not go the BNC connector route.
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/de-5000-lcr-tl-21-mod/

[robsims]

Basically i want to test capacitance/capacitors, inductance/inductors and resistance/resistors accurately. And besides that i want to know if a capacitor is good or not. That's what i want, nothing more and nothing less

[Doctorandus_P]

The snake word is "accurately".
I'm happy with an accuracy of around 5%, and that is why I did not buy the DER EE 5000. If you buy it though, you're likely to get much better accuracy even if you only use simple wires with banana plugs. If you do this, then do use short wires. Something like 10cm is preferably to half a meter!

For the "high end" meters the test jigs to connect your device under test to the meter itself can easily cost EUR 500 or even more, and that is just for some passive mechanical stuff.

In the link Shock posted there are some good ideas for diy-ing test jigs. I think that Dave also made some EEVBlog video's about test jigs and their properties.
It also has a link to Tindie for a PCB that fits into the slots of another LCR meter, and those PCB's only cost a few EUR. The design is also on github if you have to modify it to fit in the DER EE 5000.

https://github.com/voltlog/kelvin-leads

The other parts such as wires, kelvin clips or SMT tweezers are easily sourced standard parts.

[kripton2035]

esr meters need to be robust device that can withstand mains voltage and up to 400V
this is for the case when you forget to discharge the capacitor you want to measure...
the de5000 is a very good lcr meter, but will die if you do not discharge the capacitor before measuring.
it's quite easy to make one yourself, look at my webpage : http://kripton2035.free.fr/esr-repository.html
for me the easiest and more robust today is the jay_diddy esr meter : http://kripton2035.free.fr/analog%20esr/esr-dmm-adapter-.html

[robsims]

Thank you Doctorandus_P. good info about the length of the wires. Tomorrow i will order a DE5000 from ebay and a breadboard. Think the de5000 is  the best option for now

[mapleLC]

What do these meters really have that an oscilloscope with a function generator won't do?

This reminds me of early in my career when I was programming a lot, there were really low level languages like assembly, then later on what I call "meta programming languages" evolved coupled with products such as Tibco and BizTalk, maybe SAP.  My point is that in between these really useful extremes, a lot of bloat and shitware came into being like JavaScript or early refinements of objectification like C++ that were lets just say CUMBERSOME. 

These 50 dollar type disposable tools smack of this kind of javascript of lab tools.  If someone can enlighten me on what the capabilities are that make this tool indispensable, I would like to hear it.

[Shock]

The standalone ESR meters are designed for determining electrolytic capacitor health, a common indicator being abnormally high ESR. Specifically the ones I showed are suitable for in circuit use as it operates below the junction voltage threshold and robust enough to be exposed to a 50V (or 250V when modified) cap discharging across the inputs. The test frequency is 100 kHz, commonly used to test caps.

They are used more as a comparative tool, to quickly determine if the ESR is double, triple the expected value etc. Doing this without an ESR meter is a lot of messing around and not practical during repair. Daves video shows usage.

Of course bulging is an obvious sign but they don't always bulge and it's particularly useful (along with checking leakage and capacitance) to check if a cap that has been sitting around is still good,  or to check if a donor from a scrap board is worth salvaging.

Edit:
People didn't have access to scopes or function gens in the past and cheap LCR meters didn't do advanced functions like ESR calculations, so making your own ESR meter became popular.

Once you start finding suspect caps with them it's one of the most useful tools you could have. Sure there are many ways to skin a cat, but they are fairly inexpensive to build and for most repairers it's a money making tool.

[armandine2]

ESR is in series with the capacitor, by definition. Yet leakage is through the capacitor - see the YouTubers who have tested their capacitor at working voltages.

[mapleLC]

Post one so we are not guessing

[rsjsouza]

ESR is in series with the capacitor, by definition. Yet leakage is through the capacitor - see the YouTubers who have tested their capacitor at working voltages.

Indeed. Leakage is particularly serious when restoring older audio and test gear operating at tens or hundreds of volts.

Post one so we are not guessing

I posted a few videos where I test the leakage of some "tar bombs" and "paper oil bombs" as well as electrolytics of very high capacitance. All in portuguese, so unfortunately it might not be the most understandable... I am sure there are a few others available.

link 1
link 2

[TimFox]

Technical note:
For a capacitor at a fixed, reasonable frequency, there is a well-defined relation between the equivalent series and parallel resistances, and a related relation between the equivalent series and parallel capacitances.  In both models (at that frequency), the Q values are equal.
However, at DC, the resistance values are unrelated and only the “leakage” (parallel resistance) has physical meaning.

[floobydust]

I've used the Alltronics Anatek Blue ESR/ Bob Parker ESR meter for years, it works very well and puts out up to 50mA test pulses. There are chinese knockoffs of it now on eBay.

Also tried the XJW01 LCR meter from Aliexpress, it's not bad as a copy of the HP bridge (uses AC sine-wave) for test but highest frequency is 7.8kHz and the firmware is a little clunky. The newer, high frequency (STM32+DDS) version is not sold to the West.

Never used a DE5000 and no idea how good it is, no idea of the excitation waveform and current.
chinese electrolytes are very weird, most poor quality test gear will read high capacitance value despite the part failing, having high ESR and leakage current.

[The Electrician]

Never used a DE5000 and no idea how good it is, no idea of the excitation waveform and current.

This was explained in reply #12.

[floobydust]

I see the DE5000 spec is 0.5VRMS and unknown current. I didn't like the 8 missing protection clamps, that's a fail in my books for an LCR meter.
Even if you short and discharge an electrolytic, they come back up a bit due to dielectric absorption.

[Shock]

This is why having both are best. If you are matching, sorting or need accurate performance characteristics use the LCR meter. For repairs or quick checks, a multimeter along with separate ESR meter gets it done.

The DE5000 is fine it's just not designed specifically to be used in circuit. Installing the protection componentry likely results in it either not calibrating, zeroing or losing accuracy. I thought I read somewhere someone was going to try this out a while back. The DE5000 is still a bargain though in my opinion.

You can also run a cheap AVR meter and it's only a few bucks to repair so doesn't matter if you toast it. Or build something like Jay_Diddy_B's ESR adapter which uses protection diodes across the inputs (same as you can mod on the older Bob Parker designs).

Plenty of options.

[mapleLC]

This is why having both are best. If you are matching, sorting or need accurate performance characteristics use the LCR meter. For repairs or quick checks, a multimeter along with separate ESR meter gets it done.

The DE5000 is fine it's just not designed specifically to be used in circuit. Installing the protection componentry likely results in it either not calibrating, zeroing or losing accuracy. I thought I read somewhere someone was going to try this out a while back. The DE5000 is still a bargain in my opinion.

Again, why not an oscilloscope?

[PushUp]

TRX Lab (ex TRX Bench) did the best video series about this topic, also about the "DER EE DE-5000" - roughly 4 hours of packed infos:

#83
ht*****tps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivVSq0IiZGo

#154 1-2
ht*****tps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2K9j2KGzDY

#155 2-2
ht*****tps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0RkxF_yAps

 

Again, why not an oscilloscope?

As long as you have to buy your testgear yourself and also as a beginner, starting with repairing dead things within your household, you need to buy other equipment first, before thinking of purchasing an oscilloscope and a function genearator - and as mentioned above, you only need to know the right direction to estimate the situation of a bad cap, so that a cheap chinese ESR-Meter is the best investment to do, before going any further...

At least that was my approach some years ago, having learned something totally different and having no family member or friend being able to help or give tips in any way...say nothing of having access to use such special testgear...

Cheers! 

[rsjsouza]

This is why having both are best. If you are matching, sorting or need accurate performance characteristics use the LCR meter. For repairs or quick checks, a multimeter along with separate ESR meter gets it done.

The DE5000 is fine it's just not designed specifically to be used in circuit. Installing the protection componentry likely results in it either not calibrating, zeroing or losing accuracy. I thought I read somewhere someone was going to try this out a while back. The DE5000 is still a bargain in my opinion.

Again, why not an oscilloscope?

I pesronally don't really care for the cheap ESR meters as I prefer measuring the dissipation factor instead with the LCR, as it is less dependent on the capacitance itself and is specified by the manufacturers on their datasheets (unless for high ripple caps). However, even the ESR meters have their place, since the convenience factor, as well as cost is unparalleled. After all, it is better to have some idea of the status of a cap than none. Also, a bad oscilloscope bought new can be had for 2~2.5x the price of the DE-5000 in question here.
Regading protection, it is a specialized equipment for specific tasks: my Reed 5001 can withstand 30V on its inputs, thus more than enough for the occasional mishap.

[armandine2]

Post one so we are not guessing

The YouTubers I have in mind are:

 John Ward - he uses his Fluke multi function tester in insulation test mode to check a run / start motor capacitor

and

Bill - Lockdown Electronics - he recreates w2aew's procedure to measure the esr with an oscilloscope and function generator, but goes on to test with an insulation tester (much like above)

[Ed to add #744 IMSAI Guy]

[mapleLC]

Post one so we are not guessing

The YouTubers I have in mind are:

 John Ward - he uses his Fluke multi function tester in insulation test mode to check a run / start motor capacitor

and

Bill - Lockdown Electronics - he recreates w2aew's procedure to measure the esr with an oscilloscope and function generator, but goes on to test with an insulation tester (much like above)

[Ed to add #744 IMSAI Guy]

So you might not need any fancy equipment but chasing down all those specs with every single cap you come across?  That's cumbersome.

[armandine2]

fancy equipment, or not, it becomes a fetish soon enough.

[Doctorandus_P]

For anyone thinking (or curious) about home-built ESR meters, have a look at:

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