$20 LCR ESR Transistor checker project

[stj]

T4

[jjelec]

Can someone please tell me the range of the frequency measurement feature.
And the accuracy, and is it affected by standard calibration.
My TFT colour version with 1.12 seems to be way out.
At 455KHz.
 

[stj]

firstly, it's only as good as the cpu clock.
i know some people replace one of the 22pf crystal caps with a variable capacitor and adjust it with a frequency counter.

second, AFAIK it's only good to 4-6MHz with the 8MHz crystal - maybe 10MHz if you have a 16MHz crystal.

[hapless]

It's accurate enough for aligning IF coils, but you will need to really increase the amplitude of the signal somehow. The MCU's pin is likely not going to be sensitive enough. Not to mention that you'd probably be better off with something that can actually generate proper signals instead.

[jjelec]

I was trying to use it to measure(check) output frequency old my old valve(tube) AM RF generator.
 Seems to work OK at IF frequency, but when checked against 3 fairly modern transistor radios, all peaked with
transistor testor showing approx 452KHz instead of 455KHz.
Of course there is a chance that all 3 radios are out, but I don't think so.
Plently of RF level going in, can back the level way down before tester stops sampling.
 I have nothing to calibrate with.
JJ

[hapless]

It's not impossible that your tester is off, but I would say that unless one of those radios has a ceramic/SAW 455kHz filter, it's more likely that they are simply not tuned to 455kHz exactly, especially if they were all made on the same factory. They don't have to be.

To give you an idea of how accurate the tester can be out of the box, with no tweaking mine measures 100.0060Hz on a 100.0042Hz signal.

A cellular phone or a computer can generate a fairly accurate tone that you can test your TT's frequency counter with. It may not be too accurate, you should be able to tell if it's off by 3kHz.

[Harm2k16]

T4

Sorry for my late reply (i have no Internet access at work (critical environment)), but the tester seems to be working right now. Thank you so much for taking the time to compile/translate new firmware!
You may ask why replace the 328P chip and not simply erase the thing, well i've tried to read the contents by means of varying the supply voltage (in the hope i would get some sort of "glitch" wich would then allow me to read the contents), but without success the 328P microcontroller didn't survive.
Before this, i've downloaded all firmware on wich i could lay my hands on regarding this T4- tester and tried it, i flashed so many different software that i forgot all those names, mostly got them from Russian sites (with strange names...).

I didn't came accross the original MTtester firmware on the Internet, i guess the Chinese developers didn't "leak" the firmware and/or released it for public.
Finally, here i got the tester from: http://www.aliexpress.com/store/group/Transistor-Tester/1962265_508645019.html?spm=2114.10010108.100008.2.HdoawM they do have nice laser-cut acryllic cases for them.

Thanks again.

[Harm2k16]

Additional.
FIY: Someone send me the following files just this morning, they also contains different font-types, the DFONT_8x16thin is very nice one.

[stj]

i always use 7x12 on monochrome displays because:

With a font width below 8 more than 16 characters can be shown in one display line.

it's a tool, functionality over style 

[linker3000]

Hi everyone,

I have a board marked EZM Electronics Studio M328_9V_V3.3 2014.10.22 I have flashed a spare 328P with two variants of the firmware with mixed results:

GM328_EZM_v1.12k_r541: Board is hard to turn on. Seems to perform most tests OK but often incorrectly identifies small signal transistors as JFETs

mega328_GM328 from current trunk: Board turns on but ditto with the small signal transistors.

With the original 328P and firmware, the transistors are detected correctly.

Am I using the right firmware and any thoughts on whether it's working as expected or what I can try (i have run a self test on both)

Thanks

[elcoma]

Hello I have the same tester and found firmware for it on the BADCAPS forum.   (svn 684)

[vinceroger]

Hello I have the same tester and found firmware for it on the BADCAPS forum.   (svn 684)

This should be the one thanks to stj this firmware is from the badcaps forum

[elcoma]

badcaps forum: SVN 684 software

[indman]

Hi! Very often there is a confusion with number of revision K-Firmware and M-Firmware. At present the freshest and last revision from Karl-Heinz has number 683! On a photo the example for determination of current issue is shown.

[stj]

all firmwares i build with an SVN reference are "K" firmware.

[lordstein]

Hello, I bought the transistor tester banggood, also the tl866cs programmer (tl866cs mainly I use it to dump bios
) When buying transistors tester also buy a replacement atmega chip (programmed). I want to upgrade to the latest version of mandires,
I do not currently able to do a dump of the original firmware (possible or manufacturer has blocked reading) it shows the tl866 read but appears blank(ff).

[madires]

Hi! Very often there is a confusion with number of revision K-Firmware and M-Firmware. At present the freshest and last revision from Karl-Heinz has number 683! On a photo the example for determination of current issue is shown.

Let's try to shed some light on the process

k-firmware: "trunk" is the current version under development (1.12k at the moment), and Karl-Heinz adds features, improvements and bug fixes, while pushing each change to the repository. The repo automatically increases the revision for each submission. When he thinks that it's time for a new version, he archives the current version, moves the archive to "tags" and increases the version in "trunk".

m-firmware: I'm releasing only finished versions and don't submit each change to the repo. But the repo will add a revision to the submission of a new m-firmware. That revison can be simply ignored.

[hapless]

all firmwares i build with an SVN reference are "K" firmware.

I think you may have missed indman's point. As I understand, he's wondering how you managed to compile 684 while the latest current version is only 683. My guess is that 684 is a typo, right?

Hello, I bought the transistor tester banggood, also the tl866cs programmer (tl866cs mainly I use it to dump bios
) When buying transistors tester also buy a replacement atmega chip (programmed). I want to upgrade to the latest version of mandires,
I do not currently able to do a dump of the original firmware (possible or manufacturer has blocked reading) it shows the tl866 read but appears blank(ff).

I don't think you'll be able to find any microcontroller sold by banggood that is not locked for reading. You can simply erase whatever is there, then set fuses and flash the new firmware.

[stj]

no, it's not a typo.
when you grab the latest files with

svn checkout svn://mikrocontroller.net/transistortester/Software/trunk

the server gives you the latest version number.
i just ran it now - for you.
and it says:

Checked out revision 688.

however, some updates are just documentation or bootloaders for people using arduino boards etc.
so 688 is not actually going to be any different from my 684 zip's

[hapless]

I see why there's confusion now. Visit this site with a web browser:
http://www.mikrocontroller.net/svnbrowser/transistortester/Software/trunk/?sortby=rev

You will see then why our numbers are different. Both 684 and 688 are for m firmware (688 being the latest, 1.24), and the latest one for k is 683. The server assumes that there's only one project there, which is obviously not the case, so you can't rely on the latest revision number that it provides for you with checkout.

[madires]

If you're looking for the latest k-firmware, check the revision of "trunk" at https://www.mikrocontroller.net/svnbrowser/transistortester/Software/ and compare that to your local copy. You can do the same for the m-firmware ("Markus") to see if there's anything new, but the revision isn't relevant.

[lordstein]

all firmwares i build with an SVN reference are "K" firmware.

I think you may have missed indman's point. As I understand, he's wondering how you managed to compile 684 while the latest current version is only 683. My guess is that 684 is a typo, right?

Hello, I bought the transistor tester banggood, also the tl866cs programmer (tl866cs mainly I use it to dump bios
) When buying transistors tester also buy a replacement atmega chip (programmed). I want to upgrade to the latest version of mandires,
I do not currently able to do a dump of the original firmware (possible or manufacturer has blocked reading) it shows the tl866 read but appears blank(ff).

I don't think you'll be able to find any microcontroller sold by banggood that is not locked for reading. You can simply erase whatever is there, then set fuses and flash the new firmware.

ok thanks, i have two atmega 328p i erase both chip and installed the trunks version on chip #1 (no read regulators)  want install mandires on chip 2 but apparently not compiled

[hapless]

Markus provides his firmware as source code. If you tell me what kind of display controller your unit has and whether it has a voltage reference or not, I can compile it for you. Unless... Markus, you don't mind, do you?

[madires]

Be my guest

[hapless]

Thanks! 

To speed things up, I made a few assumptions about the tester and compiled the firmware. Unfortunately, I can't test it right now. If this doesn't work right, try to describe the problem in as much detail as you can, and I will adjust parameters and have another go at it.

Edit: There was a problem with icons not being displayed. Go to post 2379 to download a (hopefully) fixed version:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/$20-lcr-esr-transistor-checker-project/msg1003295/#msg1003295