Looking for a good Inductance Capacitance Meter what do you recommend?

[sullyRD]

I was looking at the "UT602 UNI-T Modern Inductance Capacitance Meter Uni-Trend" but i don't know anything about this meter does anyone have any advice or knows of any other meter which is better suited to getting the correct measurement of most types of capacitors. Cheers

[robrenz]

IMO The IET Labs DE-5000 is very good.  If you are not in a hurry you can get a better deal thru franky here. He includes all the accesories in his price.  From all I have seen on the forum this unit has excellent performance.

There is a lot of info on the forum for the Mastech MS5308 also. It is much cheaper but has some power supply issues.

[free_electron]

first of all : what do you want to measure them for ? to find bad ones ? to match them ?  because you are tuning a system and need to know the exact behavior of the part including q/d/z and other factors ? because you are MAKING them ?

for each of the three above questions there is a path.
to find bad ones : get an esr meter.
to match them : you'll need a bit more precision than that ...
because you are tuning : you need to know the operating frequency of your system. its no good buying a lcr meter with a max frequency of 10Khz if your circuit works in the 1 MHz band... you may need an impedance analyser with model extraction.
becasue you are making them : you need even more capabilities. youll need a parameter analyser

[jpb]

The direct price to the UK from IET is expensive because of the postage costs. (I e-mailed them a few months ago.) This makes the Agilent meter quite a bit cheaper in the UK.

Franky's price is a lot less but I'm not sure how convenient it would be if anything needed fixing under warranty.

The price I was quoted from IET direct on 24th Feb was $335 + $140 postage on top of which you'd probably need to pay 20%VAT/Import duty so the total cost would be around £370.

The Agilent U1733C is currently £284 at Conrads (including VAT).

Franky's price  would be around £270 if you include import duty.

If you do a bit of searching you'll find reviews/comments on both on this site.

e.g. see this thread which I started back in March when I asked a very similar question:

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/iet-de-5000-lcr-meter-in-uk/

[robrenz]

In the US The U1733C is about $90.00 more expensive than the DE-5000.  The Agilent U1733C has an extra digit of resolution and a much more sophisticated user interface. But I think the extra digit came from marketing not engineering since it has no 4 wire measurement and the additional digits error goes thru the roof on the lowest scales   Even though the banner spec of the 1733 is 0.2% versus the 0.3% of the 5000, the 5000 is equal or more accurate on many frequency/range combinations.

An example of how the extra digit of resolution is from marketing:
The IET DE-5000  will give you +/- 1% +3 counts on the 20 Ohm range at 1kHz  Calculated % of value error would  be:
10 Ohm  = 1.%
1.0 Ohm  = 1.3%
0.1 Ohm   = 4.0%
0.01 Ohm  = 31.0%
0.001 Ohm = 300%

The Agilent U1733C will give you +/- 0.7% +50 counts on the 2 Ohm range at 1kHz  Calculated % of value error would  be:
10 Ohm  = 0.78% (20 ohm range)
1.0 Ohm  = 1.2%
0.1 Ohm   = 5.7%
0.01 Ohm  = 50.7%
0.001 Ohm = 500%
0.0001 Ohm = 5000%

[nctnico]

I've got this kit:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/261114892135

It doesn't work with electrolytic capacitors (for that you'd want an ESR meter) but anything else goes.

[ChiefPFF]

I've recently bought a UT612 for £95 - it's screen is crap and the buttons, body and tweezers feel cheap and nasty - but it does the job and is well featured for the price.

AFTER I'd ordered it though, I did see someone selling the older series of agilent LCR on ebay for a snip (around £150). Might be worth a look.

[Wytnucls]

I was looking at the "UT602 UNI-T Modern Inductance Capacitance Meter Uni-Trend" but i don't know anything about this meter does anyone have any advice or knows of any other meter which is better suited to getting the correct measurement of most types of capacitors. Cheers

The UT602 only does Inductance and Resistance, NOT Capacitance. The UT603 is the only one in the range that can measure all three.

[EEVblog]

In the US The U1733C is about $90.00 more expensive than the DE-5000.  The Agilent U1733C has an extra digit of resolution and a much more sophisticated user interface. But I think the extra digit came from marketing not engineering since it has no 4 wire measurement and the additional digits error goes thru the roof on the lowest scales   Even though the banner spec of the 1733 is 0.2% versus the 0.3% of the 5000, the 5000 is equal or more accurate on many frequency/range combinations.

Charles (from Trio Smart Cal) and I found the opposite when we compared the two against some reference standards in his lab to evaluate the DE-5000. The Agilent was the better and more accurate unit at various range extremities.
Can't recall exact details though.
I'd recommend the Agilent, unless you really need that 4 wire.

[smashedProton]

If you are like ne, and on a budget, you can use a precision cap and inductor to do resonant frequency Analysis

[robrenz]

In the US The U1733C is about $90.00 more expensive than the DE-5000.  The Agilent U1733C has an extra digit of resolution and a much more sophisticated user interface. But I think the extra digit came from marketing not engineering since it has no 4 wire measurement and the additional digits error goes thru the roof on the lowest scales   Even though the banner spec of the 1733 is 0.2% versus the 0.3% of the 5000, the 5000 is equal or more accurate on many frequency/range combinations.

Charles (from Trio Smart Cal) and I found the opposite when we compared the two against some reference standards in his lab to evaluate the DE-5000. The Agilent was the better and more accurate unit at various range extremities.
Can't recall exact details though.
I'd recommend the Agilent, unless you really need that 4 wire.

Thanks Dave, I am just going by the specs of both units on paper with the specs normalized to percent of reading values. I can only do real testing of the DE-5000 on its resistance accuracy which is substatialy better than spec.

Short video of its low milli ohm performance and ESR test here

[PA4TIM]

I tested the DE-5000 to my own standards (extracted from several methodes of measurement using VNA's, bridges, standards) my GR , HP and ESI standards, also against bridges like the GR-1620. My DE-5000 is better as the specs on capaciance and resistance. Self inductance is harder to compare but results seems to be within specs compared to my  standars inductors and Boonton 63H (0.1 % and 200 pH resolution)

I tested an Agilent last year, can not remember the type. It was orange and one year old. It was just at the edge of the specs and performed very bad on inductors. It could be the battery could be to far empty but my Agilent multimeter stays correct until  the battery is total empty so I would expect the same from that LCR meter. I could not say I was thrilled by it, but it could be an exeption, I really do love my U1252A TRMS meter (have it 2 year and still within specs)

[jarvis]

In the US The U1733C is about $90.00 more expensive than the DE-5000.  The Agilent U1733C has an extra digit of resolution and a much more sophisticated user interface. But I think the extra digit came from marketing not engineering since it has no 4 wire measurement and the additional digits error goes thru the roof on the lowest scales   Even though the banner spec of the 1733 is 0.2% versus the 0.3% of the 5000, the 5000 is equal or more accurate on many frequency/range combinations.

Charles (from Trio Smart Cal) and I found the opposite when we compared the two against some reference standards in his lab to evaluate the DE-5000. The Agilent was the better and more accurate unit at various range extremities.
Can't recall exact details though.
I'd recommend the Agilent, unless you really need that 4 wire.

Hi Dave, could you decribe the details for your testing ?

[sullyRD]

Cheers folks for the advice in reply to

first of all : what do you want to measure them for ? to find bad ones ? to match them ?  because you are tuning a system and need to know the exact behavior of the part including q/d/z and other factors ? because you are MAKING them ?

The reason why i asked was i need to test new & faulty ceramic capacitors before installation and or removal.

[free_electron]

Faulty in what sense ?
Ceramics are either shorted or they leak at high voltage... Neither test can be done with lcr meter...
You need to be abble to apply working voltage and see if they leak there so hou need a machine with dc bias capability.

[SeanB]

Ceramics crack, and then leak with high voltage ( depending on size and value high voltage can be 2V on small units) or go pretty close to short circuit. Really you only need to test for leakage at rated voltage, and for capacitance that is outside the low end of the tolerance at zero bias voltage. You will need to accurately know the values and tolerances of the caps in question, as they do have a very large spread of values that vary with time, voltage and soldering.

[TimNJ]

I've always heard good things about this one: http://aade.com/lcmeter.htm


$100...