Kit Bashing The Bob Parker Blue

[SgtRock]

Greetings EEVBees:

--I very much like the Anatek Bob Parker Blue ESR Meter, but I did not much like the the alligator clip probes. The alligator clips were good enough, but the leads were not terribly flexible. So I cut the board to fit, wired across the broken traces, and hooked up the probe vias to an epoxied on half of a broken Fluke jack receptacle. Now I can hook on any of my many Fluke compatible probes, leads and clips. I works just great and did not require recalibration.

"A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases"
John Keats 1795 -1821

Best Regards
Clear Ether

[ModemHead]

I took a somewhat less drastic approach, with some cheap Velleman banana jacks, standard 0.75 inch spacing.

[SgtRock]

Greetings EEVBees:

--Clearly ModemHead has put me to shame. Much better, much cleaner, much more professional. Pardon me, I am going out to find some worms to eat.

"He was born ignorant, and has been losing ground ever since."
Fred Allen 1894 1956

Best Regards
Clear Ether

[ModemHead]

Yours can take shrouded plugs, mine cannot. I do find JB Weld to be very useful stuff, however.

[SgtRock]

Greetings EEVBees:

--Clearly ModemHead is just saying that to make me feel better.

"Oh, nobody likes me, everybody hates me, guess I'll eat some worms
Big fat juicy worms, ooshy wooshy wooshy worms
Bite the heads off, suck the juice out
Throw away the skins...[I forget the rest]
Childhood Song

Best Regards
Clear Ether

[zaoka]

Another alternative is to install BNC jack and use ProbeMaster http://www.probemaster.com/product_info.php?cPath=2_17&products_id=42

[notsob]

@modemhead - just replace your bananas with shrouded ones

http://jaycar.com.au/productView.asp?ID=PS0423&form=CAT2&SUBCATID=990#1

you should be able to locate them at a better price than these

[SgtRock]

Greetings EEVBees:

--Blue shrouded jacks, huh. Well that is just bloody great, that is. Where are those goddamn worms.

"We are all born ignorant, but one must work hard to remain stupid."
Benjamin Franklin  1706 - 1790

Best Regards
Clear Ether

[ModemHead]

--Blue shrouded jacks, huh. Well that is just bloody great, that is. Where are those goddamn worms.

Lay off the worms, Sarge.    Those shrouded jacks won't fit in the tiny space in front of the LED displays without ummm.... drastic kit bashing.  I had some better quality Pomona jacks that I would have rather used, but they just won't fit, hence the cheapies.

As for me, I didn't require shrouded jacks, I have plenty of test leads with unshrouded plugs.

[Excavatoree]

I'll do the worm eating.  I made a brief attempt to install jacks, using the time honored criteria of "What the heck do I have here that I can find" and quickly learned that the jacks I had wouldn't fit.  So I abandoned the idea and have the crappy leads coming from the hole in the case. 

[grenert]

The EVB version of the Parker meter comes with banana jacks standard:
http://clientes.netvisao.pt/greenpal/evb1.htm

[GK]

Lay off the worms, Sarge.

Hmmm.. I'm wondering that they might not be too bad if you purge them properly first. Fried they might be a nice crispy noodle-like complement to a stirfry.

[SeanB]

Mopani worms are rather tasty, and nice when dried and fried.......

[HardBoot]

What ever happened to the lazy ESR test method of just timing how fast the cap can dump a full charge?
Although... a kit costs a hell of a lot less than a quick scope and $30 capacitance metre.