China LC200A LC Meter Teardown

[Mechatrommer]

recently came up somewhere here. so i bought to try one, along with other items from China. for $43 i thought it is just a pic LC module kit with nice casing, turned out to be different. bought from ci_tynight209 (i will recommend this seller as they are very helpful and responsive imo). http://www.ebay.com.my/itm/L-C-Inductance-Capacitance-Multimeter-Meter-LC200A-Tool-/170674919477?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item27bd049835 if you ask me... i'm happy. pictures worth 1K++ words.

[saturation]

Thanks mecha, for making the review and teardown.  It looks like a decent LC meter to give you ball park figures.

The links states they use 500 kHz and 500 Hz.  Most manufacturers spec their products at 1kHz or orders of magnitude from 100 Hz: 1kHz, 10kHz, 100kHz, 1 MHz.  The measured value from this device should still be close though.  It would be better to also have DF or Q.

[Mechatrommer]

sometime it can go up to 600++KHz. yup its good to have if other parm can be displayed, but at $40, i think there's no competition for low valued capacitance and inductance measurement. its very hard to find such device, the closest i searched sometime ago is lab quality thousands dollars tag. the commonly mentioned LCR meter around here can price minimum $100 (normally $300), which still dont go down to pF and sub uH level reliably. so this china designer is a bless for me. from my experience with it, i can say the reading are repeatable (as long as we keep remembering to zero everytime when changing range hi/lo l/c), about the accuracy, i dont have anything else to test it with, i will not be optimistic on that, but hey, at least i can sort back my caps and inductors on the table back to their appropriate bag, thats the main mission i bought this , and 2nd, since its expendible, i can make teardown as much as i want to i already made my custom probe/rig for it. and i use it with my generic wallwart, no need to worry the 4xAA.

[grenert]

This LC meter kit will go down to .01 pF and 1 nHy.  Kit is $100 plus shipping ($6 in the US, $12 elsewhere).
http://www.aade.com/lcmeter.htm

They have lots of accuracy and repeatability information for the meter on the site.

[RCMR]

I recently bought this one but haven't had a chance to try it out yet.

http://www.goodluckbuy.com/lc100-s-l-c-f-inductance-capacitance-high-precision-meter-board.html

Looks somewhat similar but is only $37

[Mechatrommer]

Looks somewhat similar but is only $37

yes i believe its similar except older version. previously mentioned seller also sell it for $33 http://www.ebay.com.my/itm/High-precision-L-C-Inductance-Capacitance-meter-LC100-A-/170674919437?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item27bd04980d if you want to save $11 and dont care about the casing/batt compartment and older version 1 than, thats another option.

[Mechatrommer]

this is the manual http://mpl.jp/lc/LC200A%20%20EN%20V5.0.pdf accuracy reported to be somewhere similar to aade above, more or less, but who knows?

[nukie]

It looks like it was made by the same chaps who made the dds function generator, ST chip for I/O and that motorola buck boost chip.

[Zad]

I think people are still mistaking resolution for accuracy! They are quoting between 1 and 5% accuracy, which is probably more hope than measurement. The use of the word "precision" in association with any of these designs is amusing to say the least.

[RCMR]

I think people are still mistaking resolution for accuracy! They are quoting between 1 and 5% accuracy, which is probably more hope than measurement. The use of the word "precision" in association with any of these designs is amusing to say the least.

Yes, but as my tailor tells me... "forget the quality, feel the width!"