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