| Products > Test Equipment |
| Mastech MS5308 LCR meter with ESR measurement - on discount at the moment |
| << < (6/51) > >> |
| Fraser:
Hi Lo-tse, I must agree, the provided Mastech manual is a poor document and missing information such as the important calibrate button ! When I received my unit I immediately downloaded the chipset technical sheet as that provides useful information on how the chipset actually works. I also downloaded the IET Labs DE5000 manual as that unit uses the same chipset so is basically the same but with a different front panel ;) IET rewrote the manual to improve it. I attach the chipset data sheet. The IET DE5000 manual is available here: http://www.ietlabs.com/de5000-lcr-meter.html The CAL button should really be on the front panel as is the case with the DE5000. It puts the chipset into the open/short AC calibration routine. This is a feature of the chipset to allow for the test fixture LCR characteristics and eliminate them from the readings. This is especially important for very accurate readings using long leads such as the tweezers. It is amazing that this was missed out of the manual ! The joy of this meter is that it is basically an excellent GENERIC chipset housed in a custom case....any LCR meter using the same chipset will behave in the same manner and should offer the same performance if built correctly. You can already find other LCR meters that are using this chip set....it is likely to become very popular and unlike custom chipsets there is likely to be more information becoming available regarding the behaviour of this most useful generic chipset. Manuals for other meters using this chipset should also be applicable to the Mastech unit in terms of test procedures etc. Kind Regards Aurora |
| Lo_tse:
Hi, Aurora Thank you very much for the information. Much appreciated. I was wondering whether I should write Mastech to enquire. Well, I guess I have a lot of exploration to do ::), learning how to use this meter effectively. When I opened the battery compartment, I was surprised to find that there was actually a compartment for a 9 v battery (not hooked up though), in addition to the space allocated for the 8 x 1.5 v AA cells. I was curious why every LCR meter on the market (almost) use a single cell 9 v and the MS5308 needs 8 x 1.5V. Granted, as far as I know (correct me if I am wrong), all the AC adapters for LCR meters are set at 12 V, e.g. the TH2822A. Thanks again and take care. Regards, Lo_tse |
| Fraser:
Regarding the battery compartment. I believe the case is actually the manufacturers generic assembly, and can be used for other products, like multimeter's, that may require a 9V battery. It would be good to add the names of meters that are believed to use the same chipset in this thread as that may assist others with buying decisions and sources of better user manuals etc. The LCR meter specifications are the give away as if they mirror the Cyrustek chipset specs there is a very good chance that this is what lives inside the case. I will start with the following: Mastech MS5308 DER EE DE5000 APPA 703 V&A VA520 Extech LCR200 _ warning - no PC software or accessories ! Regards Aurora |
| Vredstein:
I didn't see a user replaceable fuse in any of the pics. Is this a relevant issue? |
| free_electron:
One thing that is persistently missing from almost all LCR bridges is the capability to apply a bias voltage on the part while measuring. or to apply a bias current to an inductor while measuring Especially with surface mounted parts this is becoming more and more a problem. To give you an idea : a 1uf 0805 10 volt Y5V cap (according to the spec) with 6 volts applied has its capacitance decreased to 3 uf ... take the same part in 0603 package and you are left with 1.3 uf ... pump up the bias to the max (according to the spec) and you are lucky to have 100nF left over ... Heat it up or cool it down and your guess is as good as mine ... X7R are much more stable. The problem is : how do you tell an X7R from a Y5V ... especially if it already sits on a board and you suspect the assembly house used the wrong ones. You can only verify that by biassing the part. The same goes with inductors. take a 1uh inductor for a buck or boost regulator , destined to run at 1 to 5 MHz switching range. This inductor is spec'd for 3 ampere saturation current. But, depending on the core material used , one type may be 800uH at 2 ampere while another may be 0.5uH at the same 2 ampere ... If you got the latter : your switcher will become unstable, may hicckup and eventually destroy itself. So, anyone know of machines that can do this ( at a decent price ? ) . I know wayne-kerr en Agilent have so called 'material analyzers' that start somehwere in the 50.000$ range... Throw in the biassing sources and it klimbs even further very fast ... |
| Navigation |
| Message Index |
| Next page |
| Previous page |