Mastech MS5308 LCR meter with ESR measurement - on discount at the moment

[jarvis]

Yes, the Rs is the same as ESR on MS5308

[Tuomas]

Dinodirect seems to be selling this thing for 158.99USD right now: link

Combined with a 10% off coupon ("XMAS001", 10% on orders 80USD or more), it seems like a pretty good deal.

It's advertised as "Hugeroe MS5308". Pictures still show Mastech on the device though.

Any thoughts on this?

[robrenz]

Can anyone verify the accuracy of the Tonghui TH2822 meter? The vendor claims ESR is good to: 0.0001 ohm
I don't believe this number...
The new Agilent meter is good to: 0.001 ohm

The Agilent 1733C has .0001 ohm resolution.  But I noticed from Daves teardown that it does not use 4 wire Kelvin connections. I have no idea how they expect to resolve to .0001 ohm with no kelvin connections.  Both the spring clips and the banana jacks were only single connection.  It does have a user cal funtion but AFIK you cant properly compensate for fixture /probe/tweezer LCR effects without 4 wire connections. Its specs at .0001 ohm are not as accurate as some meters at .001 ohm. 

[Fraser]

Tuomas,

Good spot on the 5308 LCR meter at a great price. One word of caution though.... When I bought mine there were sellers offering it at a cheaper price BUT they were not including the carry case, the Kelvin tweezers or Kelvin clips. Those were extra at significant cost. You need to confirm that these are included before buying as they will eat your price differential if bought separately.

Kind Regards

Fraser

[T4P]

Precisegauge.com sells it at 150USD and includes everything
http://www.precisegauge.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=106&products_id=436&zenid=7nrm9krischntd911lc3p36qq5
It seems to me though, DD includes everything apparently

[KD0CAC John]

T4P ,
Too bad shipping is $50 to US .

[T4P]

Yes i know that very well.

[KD0CAC John]

I did find a source $211 free shipping , just went to my bookmarks and it seems to be missing dang .
Then also a black Friday sale after the 22nd , that I posted here .
Also looking at the DE 5000,  saw Daves teardown and waiting for the review .
Those 2 seem to be the leaders in the range of meters ?
I will be picking up one of either this month , but still trying to decide .

[KD0CAC John]

I must have missed something , Agilent was not in my 2 choices [ I will have to go see if it should be ] ?
My 2 choices at this time are the Mastech MS5308 & IET DE 5000 .
Did a quick Google search & compair before posting , so it looks like what I missed was the IET is a copy of Agilent ?
So the MS5308 is gaining the lead

[robrenz]

My mistake     The DE-5000 I believe is the same chipset as the 5308.  If the 5308 works as good as the DE-5000 you will be very happy.

I removed the errant post.

[grenert]

John,
The "Black Friday" sale you posted in the other thread is just a bogus script-made page to collect the Amazon affiliate commission when you end up buying the meter at the normal price 
The current Agilent does not seem to have any clones.  The older versions were designed by Escort and shared with other manufacturers (BK Precision).  The DE-5000 is not a "clone" of anything (although it is OEM by DER-EE), but it shares the same chipset as many other meters, and they all seem to have a similar basic design.  There does seem to be some variation on implementation such as +/- Kelvin connections.

[KD0CAC John]

Thanks guys , its easy enough to get confused on my own
I'l be curious to see if anything changes on the black friday thing .
One thing I have noticed about Amazon , I have bought many books and a few other things off Amazon , and I started to notice that it seems that if following a thread somewhere about a book , that after a short time , it seems that Amazon monitors the trafic and if there are a lot of searches , they raise the price ?
I have seen a $30 book go for $90 at the end of a thread discussion .
I have stopped buying from Amazon as a result , I still look at search results at Amazon , just to see if thats the case , its not all the time but happens offen enough to suspect it is the case .
I would say in the last few yrs , I have seen at least 8-10 times this happen .
   

[KD0CAC John]

To through more into the mix , on another site someone suggested this kit -
http://www.mwinstruments.com/MW1008/MW1008_f.html

[grenert]

I actually have that MW Instruments meter from when a version of it used to be sold as a kit by M3 Electronix in the USA.  M3 is no longer in business.  Unfortunately, I do not think that MW will sell to the United States.  Too bad, that meter has some nice features like transformer testing.

[jtronix]

can we use MS5308 as in circuit tester?

can we measure ESR of capacitor and capacitor value without removing from PCB??

[robrenz]

Same answer as in your other thread.  AFIK the MS5308 uses the same chipset as the DE-5000. It has 0.5 Vrms excitation voltage or .707 peak. lower but I still dont think considered in circuit levels. 

I don't see a user cal button/feature on the MS5308 manual .  This is a big deal if you intend to use tweezers or external clips.

Edit: The cal button is on the top of the case. The DE-5000 manual shows how it works.

[LaurenceW]

You'll find b*gg*r all in the Mastech manual! it's a wsate of paper.

Yes, get hold of the DE-500 manual - it all applies to the Mastech (which does have a calibrate button, as you point out).

Lots of talk of probe measuring voltages, so here are some actual figures (across a 1uF mylar cap)

At 100 Hz - 1.9V pk-pk AC waveform about 0V
At 1KHz - 1.4V pk-pk AC
At 10KHz 250mV Pk-Pk
At 100KHz 28mV Pk-Pk

And across a "typical" supply cap of 470uF (standard, not particularly high quality low ESR)

at 100 Hz - 55 mV Pk-Pk on a tiny DC offset
at 1KHz - ~15mV Pk-Pk
higher frequencies - unmeasurable!

So in practice, in-circuit measurements are often way below transistor junction turn-on voltages.

[jtronix]

ok..

more than 1KHz test frequency in circuit measurement is not possible??

m i right???

which one is cheap and better ESR meter please suggest

[T4P]

NO! It's good for in circuit measurement.

[kripton2035]

ok..
which one is cheap and better ESR meter please suggest

here : http://kripton2035.free.fr/esr-repository.html

[jtronix]

i'm planning to buy LCR with ESR meter. i've seen Mastech MS5308, UNIT UT612, Agilent U1733C.

Agilent is too costly and i'm not sure whether it can be use as in circuit tester

i'm not able to find actual UNIT UT612 specification and also have doubt in in circuit measurement

Mastech MS5308 looks good and cheaper than Agilent. but i have doubt of in circuit measurement of capacitance and ESR, accuracy and quality of product.
any body using this meter hows it please share your experience

please suggest me which one is good among this three.  or should i buy only incircuit ESR meter seperatly.

please clear my question

[T4P]

Mastech is definitely heads-up for quality, accuracy is fairly good
UNI-T uses the same CHIP
If you no doubt of the UT612 you have no doubt of the MS5308 + you get better leads with mastech, not a crappy SMD kelvin leads that look straight out of a 90s LCR meter brochure
http://www.precisegauge.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=106&products_id=436
Click on the image in the url for the item above and see the accessories, this is the main reason why i'm not buying the UT612 even if i'm a slightly hardcore UNI-T fan(probably but Aurora has a UNI-T toolkit ...  https://www.eevblog.com/forum/product-reviews-photos-and-discussion/uni-t-ut61e-multimeter-teardown-photos/msg81221/#msg81221)

[Wytnucls]

i'm planning to buy LCR with ESR meter. i've seen Mastech MS5308, UNIT UT612, Agilent U1733C.
i'm not able to find actual UNIT UT612 specification and also have doubt in in circuit measurement

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/product-reviews-photos-and-discussion/uni-trend-2013-catalogue/?action=dlattach;attach=33208;image

[LaurenceW]

The larger the capacitance, and/or the higher the test frequency, the lower will be the capacitor's impedance. Large caps at high test frequencies result in immeasurably small AC values across the Device Under Test (DUT)  - that's what I am driving at. I didn't ever bother trying to test the 470uF above 1 KHz.

Summary - these ESR meters ARE DESIGNED to measure components in circuit. The onus is still on the user to understand enough about electronics in general, and the circuit under test in particular, to know if such measurements are indeed valid. Collections of closely wired networks of power inductors and filter caps in power supplies, or smaller components in complex close configurations in filters, will interfere with one another, when you try and take measurements on an individual component. No ESR meter can circumvent this!

I have a Mastech 5308, and it suits my Hobby/home purpose. I probably wouldn't specify it for use on a production line. I've no doubt the Agilent is even better - and so it should be! But I just have no need for any such Betterness.  (I think I might have just made that word up).

Not a great fan of UNI-T equipment at all, but no experience of their LCR meter.  If I have one criticism of my Mastech, it is that it comes in a larger case that is really at all necessary. The UNI-T's more "multimeter style/size" case might win some people over.

<EDIT> Does the UNI-T device use the small 9V ("PP3" if you are old enough...) batteries? Hmm...the chipsets in these ~$150 meters will burn through little batteries in double-quick time (22 mA draw with the backlight on). The MS5308 does use 8 AA batteries.

[KD0CAC John]

I just sent off for the Mastech and was a little weary of the register questions Precisegauge , too much info , date of birth etc.
Got for the sale price of $150 + $45 shipping so cheaper than another source $211 free shipping .
The day after there was a classifieds sale of Tenma 72-960 for $90 shipped , that always happens