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Mid-range price LCR meter ?

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Martin72:
Yes, I'm aware of that.

slugrustle:
I've already got a frequency response analyzer (Cleverscope CS320A-FRA) that can go to 65MHz and do impedance sweeps on capacitors, inductors, etc.  and am planning to buy one of the bench LCR meters in the GW Instek LCR-6000 series, probably the 100kHz unit, primarily for the accuracy of measurement (0.05%) and nice little fixtures.

Does that make sense?  Going for a very high frequency LCR meter seems to overlap in functionality with a frequency response analyzer, and I'm not as concerned about accuracy at high frequencies but rather the overall characteristic / shape of the impedance curve.

KungFuJosh:

--- Quote from: slugrustle on November 28, 2023, 01:39:08 am ---I've already got a frequency response analyzer (Cleverscope CS320A-FRA) that can go to 65MHz and do impedance sweeps on capacitors, inductors, etc.  and am planning to buy one of the bench LCR meters in the GW Instek LCR-6000 series, probably the 100kHz unit, primarily for the accuracy of measurement (0.05%) and nice little fixtures.

Does that make sense?  Going for a very high frequency LCR meter seems to overlap in functionality with a frequency response analyzer, and I'm not as concerned about accuracy at high frequencies but rather the overall characteristic / shape of the impedance curve.

--- End quote ---

You should look at the Sourcetronic / TongHui LCR meters. They have the .05% basic accuracy also, but much better specs for the prices. If you can order from Sourcetronic, that's who I recommend more. The units are the same, the ST models are rebranded from the TH models. Look at the 2830 and 2832 models. The hardware is identical, and it is possible to make the 2830 think it's a 2832, but that's not bug free yet.

Thanks,
Josh

MathWizard:
These get a lot more expensive than I realized or remembered. A few hundred $ should be good enough for me. I see a lot of meter's like from BK precision that are nice but don't even go to 100kHz, but cost a few hundred.

Who needs meters that are such a low freq?? When I think of LC stuff, I think of RF. Even a lot of bench meter's near $1000 only test upto 1k, 10k, 100kHz.

So who would want an LCR meter only upto those frequencies ? I guess for now, what I have will have to do. I'm getting some computer upgrades, before I buy any new EE tech.

Maybe I should also be looking at Impedance meters, or just the NanaVNA for now.

alm:

--- Quote from: MathWizard on November 30, 2023, 12:23:26 pm ---These get a lot more expensive than I realized or remembered. A few hundred $ should be good enough for me. I see a lot of meter's like from BK precision that are nice but don't even go to 100kHz, but cost a few hundred.

Who needs meters that are such a low freq?? When I think of LC stuff, I think of RF. Even a lot of bench meter's near $1000 only test upto 1k, 10k, 100kHz.

So who would want an LCR meter only upto those frequencies ? I guess for now, what I have will have to do. I'm getting some computer upgrades, before I buy any new EE tech.

Maybe I should also be looking at Impedance meters, or just the NanaVNA for now.

--- End quote ---
LCR meters are relatively low frequency devices that measure a number of parameters with high accuracy like 0.2% or even 0.02%. The focus is generally to get a reasonable measurement of the component at lower frequencies. Many can only measure a at a few discrete frequencies like 1 kHz, 10 kHz and 100 kHz. The frequencies are more to allow for different ranges rather than to simulate the exact frequency of interest. At 100 kHz they can often read down to the fraction of pF, which for many applications is enough, though obviously not for microwave circuits, for example. For low frequency circuits like switch mode power supplies this will be just fine. Also LCR meters are generally very quick to use with simple fixtures compared to the higher frequency solutions.

There are other instruments, like impedance analyzers or network analyzers that are designed to sweep over a wide frequency range and get a generally less accurate measurement, in the case of network analyzers especially if their impdedance at the frequency of interest is far from 50 Ohm. These were traditionally much more expensive, though now with the various incarnations of the NanoVNA/LiteVNA etc some VNAs are cheaper than many LCR meters, but i wouldn't say one replaces the other. Try measuring an electrolyic cap with a VNA.

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