Looking for instrument to measure 1.0 Ohm to <10ppm

[alligatorblues]

I'm searching for an instrument to measure 1.0 Ohm to <10ppm.. Anyone know of one offhand, for less than $2,000.

[mzzj]

Your requirements are off by about a decade. You probably have to choose between 100ppm and 20000 usd.

[tggzzz]

I'm searching for an instrument to measure 1.0 Ohm to <10ppm.

So you think purchasing such an instrument will solve your problem.

But what is your problem?

This smells like an XY-problem situation.

[Alex Nikitin]

As already noted, not enough information. What kind of resistors, what conditions? If you need to measure only one value - 1 Ohm with, say,  +/- 1% distribution with 10ppm accuracy, it should be possible with a reasonably simple bridge setup and one good quality reference 1 Ohm resistor, say Fluke 742-1 or an equivalent (only the reference with calibration data will happily eat your budget, I suspect). Whichever way you measure 1 Ohm, there will be some limits, including the maximum allowable power dissipation on the DUT - more current will give you a better sensitivity but the DUT will heat up and unless it has an exceptionally low tempco you can kiss goodbye your 10ppm accuracy. A low current will be better in this respect but the required voltage sensitivity will limit the accuracy again. For example, 1A current will give you 1uV/ppm sensitivity but 1W dissipation which is far too much (Fluke 742-1 spec is 0.5A max current) . 10mA resolves the problem with the power dissipation as it drops to only 0.1mW but the voltage change for 1ppm is almost immeasurable 10nV. 100mA looks like a reasonable compromise with 10mW dissipation which will spoil things a bit but hopefully not too much for a reasonable size resistor, with a low (2-5 ppm/C) tempco (not 0603 size though). 0.1uV/ppm sensitivity also possible to deal with, taking a good care of thermal voltages (reverse polarity switch on the bridge supply etc.). Good quality 4 way connection is required as is a quiet room with a stable temperature  .

In short - 100ppm accuracy is do-able with a calibrated reference and a good meter, 10ppm from 1 Ohm is not easy at all.

Cheers

Alex

[thermistor-guy]

... 100mA looks like a reasonable compromise with 10mW dissipation which will spoil things a bit but hopefully not too much for a reasonable size resistor, with a low (2-5 ppm/C) tempco (not 0603 size though). 0.1uV/ppm sensitivity also possible to deal with, taking a good care of thermal voltages (reverse polarity switch on the bridge supply etc.). Good quality 4 way connection is required as is a quiet room with a stable temperature  .

In short - 100ppm accuracy is do-able with a calibrated reference and a good meter, 10ppm from 1 Ohm is not easy at all.

Cheers

Alex

This would be a great DIY project - measuring nominal 1 ohm resistors with as low an uncertainty as possible, subject to
some affordable limit on build cost.

I have a self-balancing double Kelvin bridge on my DIY project list, but will take more than a year before I can get to it.
 

[johansen]

I believe i threw away a fluke, vacuum tube volt meter kelvin varley divider. Not much use for them anymore.

Its high side 40k ohm resistors were matched pretty well. 4 of them in a bridge configuration, with a 9v battey exciting the bridge and a cheap strain gauge amplifier (aka a 1kg drug scale) across the bridge.. zeroing the scale.. and heating one of the resistors with a soldering iron.. it didnt even move. 0.1ppm or better temperature coefficient, easily.

Now regarding measuring 1 ohm to 10ppm.


Buy or make yourself some 1ppm resistors on the order of 1 ohm. Test 4 of them in a bridge configuration.

Buy yourself a legit strain gauge amplifier. Why? For the 10ppm drift you dont want.


Long time ago I described in detail how to take any common digital scale, add two resistors, one of them variable, and you have yourself a milliohm meter. Its as accurate as the linearity of the resistors due to thermal effects of the current flowing during the test.

I found that a cheap 1kg scale was able to handle 140 ohm resistors to load the resistor under test and full scale of 1kg was 0.1 ohms. Yielding 0.1 milliohm resolution.  I dont recall a single reply.

I think people didnt understand that the accuracy is maintained. The strain gauge amplifier is maintaining a constant voltage gain,(probably a chopper stabilized opamp) but its internal adc is using the voltage supplied to the bridge as a reference.

Essentially if you can compare any two resistors to each other, it doesn't matter what their value is.

There is no need to spend thousands for a miliohm meter certified for 10ppm if you can buy a strain gauge amplifier for a tenth of that

For 1uV =1 ppm resolution you will need 1 amp through your test resistor. Well within the range of a sensitive strain gauge amplifier.

[mahyarJbr]

Hi
you can get Fluke 8845A/8846A Multimeters you can buy it from Fluke website or distributer website like amazon,aabtools or mme-ae

[Alex Nikitin]

Here is a good example of how to measure 1 Ohm to ppm levels... .

Cheers

Alex

[EC8010]

Long time ago I described in detail how to take any common digital scale, add two resistors, one of them variable, and you have yourself a milliohm meter.

I tried various key words in a search, but didn't find it. Do you remember where you put it?

I have a number of common digital scales that could be savaged, but not a milliohm meter...

[bastl_r]

Sorry for hijacking the thread.
Based on the measurements of Illya Tsemenko from xdevs on the 1Ohm JRL precision resistors, these should have been well outside the specs. I would have expected the worst measured value to be somewhere around 1.00005 ohms. Strangely, all measured resistors are well above 1.0001 ohms. The worst with 1.000854Ohm even scratches at the 0.1% mark.
I can't really imagine that.
There should be at least a scatter of 0,99995Ohm to 1,00005Ohm.
Or do I have a thinking error here.

bastl_r

[mawyatt]

This might be an area where a SMU can help, some of the older Keithley's might be available for around 2K? The newer ones are above $6K tho!!

Best,

[bdunham7]

Based on the measurements of Illya Tsemenko from xdevs on the 1Ohm JRL precision resistors, these should have been well outside the specs. I would have expected the worst measured value to be somewhere around 1.00005 ohms. Strangely, all measured resistors are well above 1.0001 ohms. The worst with 1.000854Ohm even scratches at the 0.1% mark.

I only have a sample of one of those JRL 1 Ohm resistors, but my (admittedly not traceably certified to sufficient accuracy) measurements also indicated that the resistor does not meet its specified tolerances, mine also being a bit high.  I don't know why this is, the resistors are Kelvin-connected so it isn't hard to wire them up to the meter and any thermal voltages should result in differences in readings, but mine were pretty stable and repeatable, just off a bit.  Perhaps they drift, they're certainly not new.  Measuring 1R to 50ppm, let alone 10ppm, is really tough, even with instruments capable of it--which I don't have.  I have a meter coming back from calibration tomorrow, it has a 24-hour spec of 30ppm + offset, so I suppose I can zero it and see how close I get. 

[Vgkid]

When I checked mine, they were roughly an order of 10x higher in error than the printed tolerance. Then again my 34420a only had its original cal count.

[Alex Nikitin]

When I checked mine, they were roughly an order of 10x higher in error than the printed tolerance. Then again my 34420a only had its original cal count.

Were these all high in resistance? My understanding is that wirewound precision resistors have a tendency to drift higher in time. My Fluke 742-10K measures around 10.00006K, though at the time of manufacturing the measured value was 9.999996K, so the drift over some dozens of years was +6.4ppm . I have a substantial number of LT450/C precision wirewound resistors, 0.002% stated tolerance, made in 1989, with values from 1K to 1M. All of these measure high from +10ppm to +50ppm of the stated value (*). These JRL resistors are NOS, so the difference must be due to the ageing.

Cheers

Alex

(*) - I suspect that the amount of drift should be roughly the same, probably about +30ppm, and the difference is due to the original tolerance, i.e. a resistor which was -20ppm from the stated value, now measures +10ppm, and the one at +20ppm now is +50ppm. It is also possible that for the low Ohm values the drift can be larger.

[mendip_discovery]

I assume my Transmille has Vishay resistors in it I thought this might give a general idea of ageing over time.



Here is it in graph form,
2W










4W

[alligatorblues]

I have an ESI SR104 that has drifted 2.9ppm since 1974.

[donlisms]

I have an ESI SR104 that has drifted 2.9ppm since 1974.

Isn't that amazing, how they did that?  So much of the design work was essentially predicting the future - what's going to happen inside this box.  Yes, based on past experience and knowledge, but still... mighty impressive, as it all works out in real life, over decades. 

[alligatorblues]

I purchased a 34420A. I'm sending it to Keysight for calibration and repair if necessary. When I get it back, I'll measure  some of my manganin standards.  I was looking at the Vishay HZ metal foil series. Does anyone know if those will be mass produced. Or all special order. I can't find a single supplier.