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| Getting an old-school impedance bridge, worth the hassle? |
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| TimFox:
Will it measure Q or D? I use that parameter to verify if a foil capacitor is polypropylene or polyester. Either a bridge, a network analyzer, or an LCR meter can do that. |
| tautech:
--- Quote from: TimFox on September 13, 2022, 11:22:26 pm ---Will it measure Q or D? I use that parameter to verify if a foil capacitor is polypropylene or polyester. Either a bridge, a network analyzer, or an LCR meter can do that. --- End quote --- Well the topic is old-school impedance bridge and the only one I've ever used was a manual nulling bridge that certainly couldn't measure Q or D and as with my now fading amount of repair work SMD smart tweezers can do everything and more that the nulling bridge could and in a fraction of the time. Sorta goes like this: Is the measured value within tolerance spec ? Is the measured ESR value suitable for the cap application ? Like with any tool confidence and knowing what to expect grows with use and for my use I'd have/use a pair of SMD smart tweezers any day over an old-school impedance bridge. Technology has moved on. YMMV |
| TimFox:
I own several "old-school" impedance bridges, from General Radio, Wayne Kerr, Hewlett-Packard, and others. Each and every one of them can measure Q or D or parallel conductance or ESR. Which one did you use that only measured capacitance? I was replying to the post above, where you asked about using a DMM in cap mode. |
| tautech:
--- Quote from: TimFox on September 13, 2022, 11:38:08 pm ---I own several "old-school" impedance bridges, from General Radio, Wayne Kerr, Hewlett-Packard, and others. Each and every one of them can measure Q or D or parallel conductance or ESR. Which one did you use that only measured capacitance? --- End quote --- TBH I can't remember as a buddy lent me it for a few months to characterize a pile of recovered inductors some 15 years back before I splashed out on a pair of ST-3's that IMO have been far more useful and convenient than an old school RLC bridge. All I remember of it was in needed feeding a 9V battery occasionally much like these now old smart tweezers from a time when rechargeable versions hadn't emerged so I need keep a card of LR44's handy. Normally I can get them for $2/card of 10 so of insignificant cost. I've been tempted to get some of Shannons new tweezers that many of us had an input into their design/feature set but IMO he hasn't got the tip design quite right for them to be robust enough to penetrate solder oxides and conformal coatings without deformation whereas these old ST-3's tips are as tough as the day I got them all them years back although with a little less gold plating on them now. :) There's no doubt if you need a proper LCR meter there are many available from Asia at reasonable costs these days however after years of using LCR SMD smart tweezers I couldn't be without this far more convenient form factor. |
| precaud:
If you really want an old-school manual bridge, I recommend the GR 1608-A. It was the "Caddilac" of manual LCR bridges. Superb build quality. I had one for many years. I think you'll find any of the digital meters mentioned here to be more versatile and useful. IIRC, the largest capacitance it would measure at 1kHz is 1200uF. |
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