Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[mnementh]

And yet people in here dogpiled me for daring to suggest that electrolytic caps were livestock with a finite trustworthy lifespan... 

So, eh, it'll tell me if a cap is like, really, really toast or in more or less decent shape, right? Because that's really all I'm after....

*silently closes door behind him*

Both the Peak units and the DE-5000 will, AFAICT. Sometimes, one of course can get such answers from your DMM if it has that measurement (I diagnosed my clothes dryer -- bad motor capacitor -- with my ScopeMeter), but rarely ESR.  The interplay between ESR and capacitance is where, IMNSHO, the DE-5000 shines.  Granted, I've not played with the Peak range; I chose to trust BD139 here. The DE-5000 has been a very significant boost to my bench, which of course says a lot about me and my capabilities, and I must therefore conclude that both are useful, without choosing between them. (notwithstanding that I have chosen, anyway  )

Yes, if you can get the tiny short leads & alligators on what you want to test with the ESR-70. If not, then it's even more infuriating than if you didn't have one at all.

mnem
 

[AVGresponding]

Hahaha.

Thing with capacitors and “goodness” is that you can’t always tell from measurements. It’s a combination of inspection and measurement. For example I’ve had electrolytic capacitors which are currently boiling their electrolyte out all over the PCB test fine on both value and ESR.

Ergo it’s sometimes better to do an evaluation of the device and say “what’s the design life of these parts” and replace anything that is exceeded and additionally anything which is known to ruin your day. Which is a problem where you’ve got a 30 year old scope because that’s technically all of it even the plastics. 

And as you've already hinted at, capacitor characteristics are frequency, and also voltage, dependant.

[mnementh]

Oh, don't even get me started on derating with MMLCCs... just DON'T. Look for 47uF/25V and what it really presents to the circuit is some intersection between two moving scales like one of these... say 12uF at 19V or some such shit...

mnem
 

[bd139]

Yes. Also Mr Carlsons LV leakage tester 

Interestingly on debating, on the OCXO module I’ve specified 50v MLCCs for the 5v rail.

[med6753]

Hahaha.

Thing with capacitors and “goodness” is that you can’t always tell from measurements. It’s a combination of inspection and measurement. For example I’ve had electrolytic capacitors which are currently boiling their electrolyte out all over the PCB test fine on both value and ESR.

Ergo it’s sometimes better to do an evaluation of the device and say “what’s the design life of these parts” and replace anything that is exceeded and additionally anything which is known to ruin your day. Which is a problem where you’ve got a 30 year old scope because that’s technically all of it even the plastics. 

Exactly. All this bluster and back and forth about which ESR meter is best. Fuck that. Truth is I don't own one although I've thought about getting one. And I'll continue to think about it. My "ESR meter" is me. If an electrolytic is approaching 30 years old it's "ESR" is too high and it goes in the bin. Some consider that wasteful and frankly my dear I don't give a damn. I look at results. Of all my equipment how many capacitor failures have I had once re-capped?

0

[bd139]

Yep. I quote my previous post on that as well which mentioned your approach 

On the subject of the ESR-70 I don't own. I don't own one because some parts I had lying around plus Jay_diddy_b's excellent ESR meter circuit did the job for about 2 hours work which was good enough for anyone's requirements. Realistically I rarely ever test ESR of capacitors. It's more an interest then an engineering perspective. I think med's approach is probably better for this if you want certainty on a repair: replace the whole damn risk. If you measure each cap out and then replace the bad ones, that only replaces the bad ones today, not tomorrow. Otherwise you spend your life repairing things and not using them for forward engineering which is a real interest of mine.

[McBryce]

Hahaha.

Thing with capacitors and “goodness” is that you can’t always tell from measurements. It’s a combination of inspection and measurement. For example I’ve had electrolytic capacitors which are currently boiling their electrolyte out all over the PCB test fine on both value and ESR.

Ergo it’s sometimes better to do an evaluation of the device and say “what’s the design life of these parts” and replace anything that is exceeded and additionally anything which is known to ruin your day. Which is a problem where you’ve got a 30 year old scope because that’s technically all of it even the plastics. 

Exactly. All this bluster and back and forth about which ESR meter is best. Fuck that. Truth is I don't own one although I've thought about getting one. And I'll continue to think about it. My "ESR meter" is me. If an electrolytic is approaching 30 years old it's "ESR" is too high and it goes in the bin. Some consider that wasteful and frankly my dear I don't give a damn. I look at results. Of all my equipment how many capacitor failures have I had once re-capped?

0

My need for an ESR Meter came from my quest to build SMPSU's with the highest efficiency possible and I was hand selecting the capacitors. Is there a "...nutery" term for that?

McBryce.

[mnementh]

Well, to med's good fortune... he (like myself) is unlikely to outlive the capacitors in devices he has shotgunned this way. There definitely is some comforting level of certainty in making that choice...

mnem
 

[med6753]

Yep. I quote my previous post on that as well which mentioned your approach 

On the subject of the ESR-70 I don't own. I don't own one because some parts I had lying around plus Jay_diddy_b's excellent ESR meter circuit did the job for about 2 hours work which was good enough for anyone's requirements. Realistically I rarely ever test ESR of capacitors. It's more an interest then an engineering perspective. I think med's approach is probably better for this if you want certainty on a repair: replace the whole damn risk. If you measure each cap out and then replace the bad ones, that only replaces the bad ones today, not tomorrow. Otherwise you spend your life repairing things and not using them for forward engineering which is a real interest of mine.

I missed that. The bullshit flinging back and forth was getting too deep so I started skimming. Yep, that's my approach with ref to capacitors and I make no excuses and I'm sticking to it.   

[Robert763]

<SNIP>

Mini rant and I'm going to step on some toes here as well but a lot of people here on EEVblog, including a lot of actual engineers wouldn't know a decent instrument if they had it in their hand. What happens is we get cult-like following of specific instruments which turn into back patting circle jerks without any practical evaluation which would stand up in a commercial environment. People make recommendations on forum buzz rather than thorough technical evaluations. A fine example is the irrational and illogical love of Brymen meters with terrible backlights, horrible statefulness problems, slow as molasses performance and really bad quality control issues. I appreciate Joe Smith's contribution to this as he's found more warts and tried to get them fixed at least. I'd rather do an independent evaluation.

Edit: to be clear on the last point this is a problem with humans rather than this forum. Every specialist forum is inflicted with the same issue. I'm not sure if there is a term for it or something.

Example: British model engineers and the Myford ML7 series of lathes.

[mnementh]

Ehhh... Do I see poured babbitt? In this millennium...? Is that a copy of the Atlas or the other way around...?

mnem
*marginally interested*

[bd139]

Oh those. Great if you need elliptical shafts made up

[Specmaster]

I'm not going to get involved in the various merits of the Peak products v DE-5000, I have seen mixed reviews / reports on them both. That said however I can take sides partially here with bd139 in as much as PEAK gear is British made and by all accounts their service back is, so I'm told first class.

I have neither of these devices so I'm not qualified to comment further on them.

I do however have (IMHO) the excellent XJW01 and also a Chinese component sorter tester of the sort that Dave tested https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Br3L1B80ow, and I can say with complete honesty that both are very good at giving me a reasonable reading for ESR on caps.

The M-Tester does give me a quick and dirty means of identifying if a suspect cap is either short circuited (yes a DMM will do the same) or if it has a totally stupidly high ESR reading which will cause circuits to fail. If I want to know what the ESR is at a certain frequency then the XJW01 allows me to select a frequency (not RF through) and they both agree pretty well. The XJW01 is a 4 wire device so is best used for caps etc that have been removed from the circuit.

Once the equipment being worked on has been brought back to life, then if the device is going to be useful and part of your normal test items, then I'd agree that the best approach is to replace all the caps with new ones to avoid it breaking down when you most need it. That is where the simple ESR meters really come into their own, as bd139 rightly said, it is not essential to be mega accurate, all you really need is a ballpark figure, a sort of good/bad indicator to get the equipment working first and foremost. To just go ahead and replace all the caps without getting it working first, could be just a wast of money and time.

[mansaxel]

Example: British model engineers and the Myford ML7 series of lathes.

When it's accepted that the Blomqvist is their superior! 

(Actually, I believe the Schaublins can run circles around both. But they're expensive and very rare.)

[Robert763]

And yet people in here dogpiled me for daring to suggest that electrolytic caps were livestock with a finite trustworthy lifespan... 

So, eh, it'll tell me if a cap is like, really, really toast or in more or less decent shape, right? Because that's really all I'm after....

*silently closes door behind him*

Both the Peak units and the DE-5000 will, AFAICT. Sometimes, one of course can get such answers from your DMM if it has that measurement (I diagnosed my clothes dryer -- bad motor capacitor -- with my ScopeMeter), but rarely ESR.  The interplay between ESR and capacitance is where, IMNSHO, the DE-5000 shines.  Granted, I've not played with the Peak range; I chose to trust BD139 here. The DE-5000 has been a very significant boost to my bench, which of course says a lot about me and my capabilities, and I must therefore conclude that both are useful, without choosing between them. (notwithstanding that I have chosen, anyway  )

Yes, if you can get the tiny short leads & alligators on what you want to test with the ESR-70. If not, then it's even more infuriating than if you didn't have one at all.

mnem
 

You keep harping on about the poor crock clips on the Peak ESR 70. This just proves two things:
1/ Your knowledge of the Peak ESR70 is out of date.
2/ Peak listen to comments and improve their products.

The current ESR 70 has plug in clips (2mm) and you can get needle probes and SMD tweezers for it

https://www.peakelec.co.uk/acatalog/esr70-capacitor-esr-meter.html
https://www.peakelec.co.uk/acatalog/esr-needle-probes.html#SID=30
https://www.peakelec.co.uk/acatalog/smd03m-lcr-and-esr-test-tweezers.html#SID=31

[med6753]

My need for an ESR Meter came from my quest to build SMPSU's with the highest efficiency possible and I was hand selecting the capacitors. Is there a "...nutery" term for that?

McBryce.

Agreed. For design work and matching components an ESR meter can be a very valuable tool.

[Robert763]

Example: British model engineers and the Myford ML7 series of lathes.

When it's accepted that the Blomqvist is their superior! 

(Actually, I believe the Schaublins can run circles around both. But they're expensive and very rare.)

I was thinking more of the Old Myford 7 V new Chinese clone of a clone arguments thet go on. Actually very similar to old TE and China TE discussions.
And likewise it depends what you want/need them for.  In particular is it just a tool to do a job or is it something to enjoy using and cherish even with it's little "foibles" and maintence needs?
I'm an ML2 owner but only because it was cheap, small, nearby and came with a lot of usable tooling.

[mansaxel]

I was thinking more of the Old Myford 7 V new Chinese clone of a clone arguments thet go on. Actually very similar to old TE and China TE discussions.
And likewise it depends what you want/need them for.  In particular is it just a tool to do a job or is it something to enjoy using and cherish even with it's little "foibles" and maintence needs?
I'm an ML2 owner but only because it was cheap, small, nearby and came with a lot of usable tooling.

Oh, I understand better now. Yes, the china lathes CAN be good, and the Myfords don't HAVE to be good. A lot of the problems with the foreign machinery is related to quality control and consistency -- it's always dependability and repeatable quality that is expensive to attain. I don't think that European industry has any magical ability to always be better than the Far East, it's just that the market segmentation currently asks for "cheap", and that means skimping on consistency.

[mnementh]

And yet people in here dogpiled me for daring to suggest that electrolytic caps were livestock with a finite trustworthy lifespan... 

So, eh, it'll tell me if a cap is like, really, really toast or in more or less decent shape, right? Because that's really all I'm after....

*silently closes door behind him*

Both the Peak units and the DE-5000 will, AFAICT. Sometimes, one of course can get such answers from your DMM if it has that measurement (I diagnosed my clothes dryer -- bad motor capacitor -- with my ScopeMeter), but rarely ESR.  The interplay between ESR and capacitance is where, IMNSHO, the DE-5000 shines.  Granted, I've not played with the Peak range; I chose to trust BD139 here. The DE-5000 has been a very significant boost to my bench, which of course says a lot about me and my capabilities, and I must therefore conclude that both are useful, without choosing between them. (notwithstanding that I have chosen, anyway  )

Yes, if you can get the tiny short leads & alligators on what you want to test with the ESR-70. If not, then it's even more infuriating than if you didn't have one at all.

mnem
 

You keep harping on about the poor crock clips on the Peak ESR 70. This just proves two things:
1/ Your knowledge of the Peak ESR70 is out of date.
2/ Peak listen to comments and improve their products.

The current ESR 70 has plug in clips (2mm) and you can get needle probes and SMD tweezers for it

https://www.peakelec.co.uk/acatalog/esr70-capacitor-esr-meter.html
https://www.peakelec.co.uk/acatalog/esr-needle-probes.html#SID=30
https://www.peakelec.co.uk/acatalog/smd03m-lcr-and-esr-test-tweezers.html#SID=31

Yay! Finally! After a fucking decade, they decided to catch up with what 3rd party vendors were doing! These were not available when I bought my DE-5000; I looked.

And at a cost of only ummm... 36 quid extra, plus shipping & Duty for both!

Okay... that DOES make it a usable instrument... but it means we're talking more like US$130 with just the tweezers for an apples-apples comparison. Plus shipping and Duty.

I wonder how this change affects their "superior accuracy" when the 4-wire connection is actually 50-80mm away from the DUT? Do they have multiple compensation tables programmed to make up for the different probes or lack thereof, or if you just use the 2mm bananas...?

I'm already pretty familiar with these mods; I did them to my ESR70 long ago and took them off as the thing was entirely too flaky. The Tweezer mod worked okay, but only if you soldered the original leads inside the tweezer. Anything with a plug in the wires was just out to lunch. 

Good to know tho; maybe I'll be able to upgrade mine with a FW update. Thanks! 

mnem
Maybe all my Tech Hoarding will pay off... if I ever get any of it back...

[mnementh]

I'm not going to get involved in the various merits of the Peak products v DE-5000, I have seen mixed reviews / reports on them both. That said however I can take sides partially here with bd139 in as much as PEAK gear is British made and by all accounts their service back is, so I'm told first class.

I have neither of these devices so I'm not qualified to comment further on them.

I do however have (IMHO) the excellent XJW01 and also a Chinese component sorter tester of the sort that Dave tested https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Br3L1B80ow, and I can say with complete honesty that both are very good at giving me a reasonable reading for ESR on caps.

The M-Tester does give me a quick and dirty means of identifying if a suspect cap is either short circuited (yes a DMM will do the same) or if it has a totally stupidly high ESR reading which will cause circuits to fail. If I want to know what the ESR is at a certain frequency then the XJW01 allows me to select a frequency (not RF through) and they both agree pretty well. The XJW01 is a 4 wire device so is best used for caps etc that have been removed from the circuit.

Once the equipment being worked on has been brought back to life, then if the device is going to be useful and part of your normal test items, then I'd agree that the best approach is to replace all the caps with new ones to avoid it breaking down when you most need it. That is where the simple ESR meters really come into their own, as bd139 rightly said, it is not essential to be mega accurate, all you really need is a ballpark figure, a sort of good/bad indicator to get the equipment working first and foremost. To just go ahead and replace all the caps without getting it working first, could be just a wast of money and time.

Just to clarify here... Both the ESR70 and the DE-5000 are 4-wire devices as well. The ESR70 is 4-wire to the alligator clip or to the 2mm banana. The DE-5000 is the same on the TL-21 leads, and the TL-22 tweezer is 4-wire to within aboot 25mm of the tip.

That attention to detail is one of the reasons it annoys me so much when folks who should know well enough to judge such things on their own merits dismiss the tool out of hand, even though they haven't used one, and even though a great many people who have used one report that it is amazingly good for the price, just like your (relatively) cheap & cheerful XJW01.

mnem
 

[Cerebus]

Example: British model engineers and the Myford ML7 series of lathes.

When it's accepted that the Blomqvist is their superior! 

(Actually, I believe the Schaublins can run circles around both. But they're expensive and very rare.)

Pah! If you get a Colchester Student you can time travel as well, which saves all the waiting around for your parts to be turned. 

[tautech]

 
Just get a good set of SMD tweezers and be done with it. 

Went through all this ~2005 looking at all sorts of stuff that was available at the time and bit the $ bullet for overall versatility and never regretted it.

[mnementh]

   Just get a good set of SMD tweezers and be done with it. 

Went through all this ~2005 looking at all sorts of stuff that was available at the time and bit the $ bullet for overall versatility and never regretted it.

Oh lordy no... Not the ST-3 vs ST-5 vs MS8911 vs DT71 "discussion" again... my blisters have just healed from the last one!!!

mnem

[Cerebus]

I was thinking more of the Old Myford 7 V new Chinese clone of a clone arguments thet go on. Actually very similar to old TE and China TE discussions.
And likewise it depends what you want/need them for.  In particular is it just a tool to do a job or is it something to enjoy using and cherish even with it's little "foibles" and maintence needs?
I'm an ML2 owner but only because it was cheap, small, nearby and came with a lot of usable tooling.

Oh, I understand better now. Yes, the china lathes CAN be good, and the Myfords don't HAVE to be good. A lot of the problems with the foreign machinery is related to quality control and consistency -- it's always dependability and repeatable quality that is expensive to attain. I don't think that European industry has any magical ability to always be better than the Far East, it's just that the market segmentation currently asks for "cheap", and that means skimping on consistency.

Warco in the UK sell a range of mini-lathes under their own brand. They are quite clearly the classic Chinese mini lathe with a few changes, specifying better and beefier parts in some places, but clearly still coming out of the same factory(s). Even a cursory glance at them makes it clear that, if you're in the market for a mini-lathe, they'll do the job better than the run-of-the-mill Chinese mini lathe. All it takes is someone saying, "No, don't fit the cheapest components." and probably "Any that fail QC will be sent back, ballistically." The price tag is fraction higher, but probably no more than if you got caught for customs duty while your plastic geared, tinfoil tailstock, mini-lathe was on its way to you on the slow boat.

[Cerebus]

I'm an ML2 owner but only because it was cheap, small, nearby and came with a lot of usable tooling.

That sounds like the, erm what's one more than a trifecta? Anyone, one of those of acquiring a compact secondhand lathe.