Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[tautech]

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.

My Harrison 12 scored 2 of the three however as it was their top optioned model I had to have it despite I wasn't quite ready to get another lathe. Still 40mins away and it wasn't too heavy for the front end loader wasn't too much inconvenience. 

[Cerebus]

My Harrison 12 scored 2 of the three however as it was their top optioned model I had to have it despite I wasn't quite ready to get another lathe. Still 40mins away and it wasn't too heavy for the front end loader wasn't too much inconvenience. 

It's alright for those of us that live in a 270,467 km² country that has a population smaller than the 1,738 km² city that I live in - kind of generates some space pressure. I need to go and live in the Boondocks somewhere...

[tautech]

My Harrison 12 scored 2 of the three however as it was their top optioned model I had to have it despite I wasn't quite ready to get another lathe. Still 40mins away and it wasn't too heavy for the front end loader wasn't too much inconvenience. 

It's alright for those of us that live in a 270,467 km² country that has a population smaller than the 1,738 km² city that I live in - kind of generates some space pressure. I need to go and live in the Boondocks somewhere...

Swings and roundabouts....pick your poison !
At least in the Boondocks Gubbermints can lock you down as much as they like and it make no damns worth of difference to daily life when in fact you get more done without the interruptions from visitors.

[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.

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
 

Hmm... I really doubt that the ESR70 is a 4 wire device seeing as it comes fitted with a 2 core fixed flying lead, terminated with 2mm gold plated plugs! See attached data sheet.

When I mentioned about the XJW01 being a true 4 wire device, that was not a suggestion that the DE5000 or the Peak ESR70 were not, although it would seem that the ESR70 isn't. I was just distinguishing a major différance between the M-Tester and the XJW01.

The M-Tester is a 3 wire device and any 2 can be used to find the capacitance and ESR of a capacitor, whereas the XJW01 is always going to be a 4 wire Kelvin device, there is no other way of using it regardless of whether you're measuring ESR, Capacity, resistance or inductance so the results of that should also be a magnitude above the M-Tester.

The XJW01 has a built-in calibration adjustment routine so that if you have the necessary reference devices (caps, resistors and inductors) then you can tweak the readings to match the known values of your reference standard, and it has been tested on this forum to be pretty close to some far more upmarket HP LCR meters costing many times more.

[Kosmic]

If you have no capacitance meter a genuine DE-5000 is a good choice. If you already have a good LCR meter the ESR 70 is a good option.

If you have a good LCR meter why would you need a ESR70 ? smaller ? easier to manipulate and take less place on the bench ?

To measure ESR 
I said LCR meter not LCR ESR meter  your other points are a good reasons too.

ESR is the same as the series resistance (Rs). Normally a good LCR meter can measure series resistance adequately.

From IET LCR primer (https://www.ietlabs.com/pdf/application_notes/030122%20IET%20LCR%20PRIMER%201st%20Edition.pdf)

I never heard of "LCR ESR meter", do you have a example?

Normally, modern LCR meter measure impedance and shouldn't have any problem giving you Rs (ESR). A lot of ESR meter actually estimate Rs using different techniques and that's why they can't measure anything else.

[beanflying]

   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

There was no debate both of these offerings poop on the DE/Peak and other tryhard Tweezers 

And yet I still have a casual look for a bench LCR meter from time to time - BEACAUSE TEA 

[BU508A]

Yokogawa DL1200A

Okay, as promised and even though it is getting late here (01:22 MEST),
here is the teardown and a little testing of the Yokogawa DL1200A.

First of all: I'm impressed. Why? Well, because of this:

This is the box. Looking suspiciously small and I'm fearing the worst. 


Let's open the box and yes: no additional packaging material. Zero! None!     


Here is what I've written to the seller and the answer (Google translator is your friend):

Hallo XXX,

das DL1200A ist heute angekommen, Danke Dir.
Allerdings muss ich sagen, dass ich enttäuscht bin über die Art und Weise, wie es verpackt war. Einfach so ein empfindliches Meßgerät in eine Schachtel zu packen, ohne Dämmmaterial, um es gegen Stöße etc. zu schützen, ist grob fahrläassig. :-( Auf die Schachtel zu schreiben "Vorsicht! Zerbrechlich!" reicht nicht und wird in der Regel ignoriert. Das Gerät konnte sich in der Schachtel auch frei bewegen, normalerweise ein Garant dafür, dass es in mehreren Teilen beim Empfänger ankommt.
Ich habe es getestet und es funktioniert. Allerdings ist dieser Umstand nur zwei Dingen zu verdanken: Glück und der Tatsache, dass die japanischen Ingenieure da ganze Arbeit geleistet haben.
Ich wollte eigentlich genau das vermeiden und die Tatsache, dass Du meine Bitte für eine gute Verpackung ignoriert hast, macht mich wütend und traurig zugleich.
Bitte, falls Du wieder so ein Gerät versenden solltest, verpacke es gut! Ausreichend große, stabile Schachtel, dick polstern und so in der Schachtel platzieren, dass es von ALLEN Seiten dick mit Polstermaterial umgeben ist UND es sich in der Schachtel nicht mehr bewegen kann.

Traurige Grüße,

BU508A


The answer:
Hallo BU508A, entschuldige bitte ich dachte die Verpackung wäre ok so. Ich merke mir das für das nächste Mal. Freut mich dass es trotzdem funktioniert hat.
Ist meiner Unkenntnis zu verdanken.
Trotzdem viel Spass damit.
Liebe Grüsse
XXX


 

First thing I did, I've shaked it a bit. Good. No rattling. The feet, plastics and connectors are looking okay.
Hope increases a bit. Here are the pictures from the outside of it.
Front, back and bottom:



Some details:
type label, BNC inputs, thingie, handle



Very impressive, this thing is build very sturdy. Good. Hope increases a bit more.

Let's open it and see, what's inside.
First, the electronics for the CRT. It is a bit dusty but besides that very clean. No rust.



HV area. I took those pictures to scare a bit bd139. 


The CRT and some labels, including a date code. This DL1200A has been built in Jan. 1991, 30 years ago.


There are several boards for the digital part, pity, they are mostly hidden and I didn't want to take it apart further.




Top view of the PSU, very compact design:


But is it working?
Let's find out.
First boot and CH1 and CH2. Looks good! This thing has survived the trip from Munich to me without any damage so far!
Very impressive! 


The display is very crisp and all the functions seems to work!
I've connected my R&S dual arb generator  (type: ADS) to the scope and fooled around a little bit.
Signals are sine and triangle, 1kHz, 2Vpp. Sorry for the blurred pictures,
sometimes the cam did not focus on the display and I was too lazy to take new pictures.


I hope you've enjoyed this little teardown and testing.
I think, I've fallen in love with those Yokogawa scopes. Cute things, a bit unusual in their handling but not illogical.

But now it's bedtime, really tired at 02:14 MEST here ... 

[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
 

Hmm... I really doubt that the ESR70 is a 4 wire device seeing as it comes fitted with a 2 core fixed flying lead, terminated with 2mm gold plated plugs! See attached data sheet.

When I mentioned about the XJW01 being a true 4 wire device, that was not a suggestion that the DE5000 or the Peak ESR70 were not, although it would seem that the ESR70 isn't. I was just distinguishing a major différance between the M-Tester and the XJW01.

The M-Tester is a 3 wire device and any 2 can be used to find the capacitance and ESR of a capacitor, whereas the XJW01 is always going to be a 4 wire Kelvin device, there is no other way of using it regardless of whether you're measuring ESR, Capacity, resistance or inductance so the results of that should also be a magnitude above the M-Tester.

The XJW01 has a built-in calibration adjustment routine so that if you have the necessary reference devices (caps, resistors and inductors) then you can tweak the readings to match the known values of your reference standard, and it has been tested on this forum to be pretty close to some far more upmarket HP LCR meters costing many times more.

I promise you, The ESR70 is 4-wires to the alligator clips (on older models like mine that don't have the 2mm bullets) and I'm certain they are 4-wire to the 2mm bullets on later models. The rest of the "updated" probes, certainly not. There is no good reason for them to change such a fundamental aspect of the device.

The DE-5000 has a capacitance compensation routine which clearly does make a difference in the accuracy of the tweezers; I believe so does the ESR-70 but it's been so long since I hung in the groups where they were doing the probe mods that I can't remember how you access it.

I did not mean to cast aspersions upon your XJW01; it was in fact one of the models I shopped very hard when I bought the DE-5000. It was just that at the time it was almost 3x as much as the DE-5000, and I decided that the latter was enough of a "entry-level lab LCR meter" for my purposes. Subsequent use by myself side x side with existing gear indicates that the positive reviews of the DE-5000 were right in line with my findings.

As for a diag tool, especially one on existing PCBs, I find it much more usable than my ESR-70. The ESR-70 was my go-to; it isn't anymore. The DE-5000 is more usable as a diag tool in almost every aspect, and not just the alligator probes on the ESR-70; they're the part that makes it a chore to use, but I am not nearly as enamored of their UI as Robert seems to be.

Maybe that's the difference here... I look at the DE-5000 and the MS8911 from a standpoint of getting through a diag chain on a PCB, and they shine in that respect. I feel their "lab instrument" aspect is secondary to that.

Add to that the bang/buck factor, which means I'm not going to be heart-broken if I fuck up and blow the thing up while diag-ing something.The thing that annoys me is the artificial argument that it has to be one or the other... and I to some extent did promote that, I suppose, even tho I didn't mean to. They are both cheap enough that you can have one or both as your first-line tool, to save risk on a piece of proper lab-grade equipment.

mnem
 

[mnementh]

Okay, as promised and even though it is getting late here (01:22 MEST), here is the teardown and a little testing of the Yokogawa DL1200A.
(SNIP)
The display is very crisp and all the functions seems to work! I've connected my R&S dual arb generator  (type: ADS) to the scope and fooled around a little bit. Signals are sine and triangle, 1kHz, 2Vpp. Sorry for the blurred pictures, sometimes the cam did not focus on the display and I was too lazy to take new pictures.



I hope you've enjoyed this little teardown and testing. I think, I've fallen in love with those Yokogawa scopes. Cute things, a bit unusual in their handling but not illogical.

But now it's bedtime, really tired at 02:14 MEST here ... 

Yummeh! Looks like a Japanese cousin to my 54645A! Glad it survived the ordeal, too...   

I'm a bit jelly of that nice crisp amber CRT... I always loved those, just like I loved my amber plasma screens back in the day. And as you say, it is very obvious that our Japanese brethren don't think the same way we do; but that doesn't mean their way of enginerding is any less nerdy!

mnem
 

[TheDefpom]

So some of you may remember that I picked up a broken Datron 4700 calibrator a month or so ago... I fixed it last week :-) its calibration even seems to be OK based on the cross checking I have been doing with some of my other trusted gear.

Needless to say I am very happy about getting it up and running again, that was a VERY expensive gamble as it cost me nearly NZ$5000 by the time I got it in my hands after shipping and import fees etc.

I have 39GB of video footage recorded which I need to edit and sort out, so I expect there will be three or four videos about its repair on YouTube in the next few weeks.

[xrunner]

Definitely will check it out! 

[vk6zgo]

..... and might not realise the SPO2 is below 50% (seriously!)

I'm no physician, but my understanding is that that person will have some serious problems well before they get down to 50%!!

Speaking as an asthmatic who has seen a lot of my own SpO₂ readings and been able to correlate them to how you feel at different readings I can confirm that. SpO₂ < 90% you won't notice if you're sitting down, and you won't notice walking at a sedate pace but you would notice walking at a normal pace, SpO₂ < 80% and any walking, even from your bed to the toilet, becomes hard work, < 70% and you won't even get to your feet.

Reliability and repeatability of the inexpensive 'stick on your finger' type SPO₂ probes is, like probing with a meter or scope, all about technique. I've found the inexpensive probes to be as good as the hospital ones, both in terms of repeatability and accuracy, in direct comparison. Basically, that means that the hospital's £2000 non-invasive probes are as crappy as the £15 ones you can buy yourself. Gold standard is an actual arterial blood gas test which involves a junior doctor hunting around inside your wrist for the artery with a needle and hurts like fuck. If you are ever unlucky enough to need ABGs taken, try to get a woman to do the needle sticking - personal experience suggests that they are more competent, less painful, and most importantly if they can't get it 1st or second try have the humility to get a better colleague to do it rather than press on trying hopelessly again and again while the patient suffers.

Edit: Just checked the BTS guidelines for the treatment of acute asthma - if your SpO² is less than 92% then they say treat with at least 6L/min oxygen and for someone suffering from an acute asthma attack they would admit you if they can't maintain an SpO² > 92% with oxygen treatment and admit to ICU if ABGs show any significant change in blood pH. I know from experience that if your SpO² is below 92% they take you from the ambulance straight into resuscitation (where there's a whole team ready to act now and there are always eyes on you even if you're apparently stable) rather than a cubicle.

I've had one of the Cheap & Cheerful Chinese fingertip SpO² meters in my Band-Aid bin for over a decade, right next to the digital thermometer and Cheap & Cheerful Chinese BP Cuff. I've found that as long as you put it on left index or middle finger, results are very repeatable, and it seems to work as well for any member of our family.

Personal experience shows that as long as it indicates higher than ~95%SpO², I feel no difference in any day-to-day activities. Any lower and I quickly feel similar fatigue and difficulty walking or dizziness similar to orthostatic hypotension whenever I try to move fast. I've only experienced this in cases of extreme bronchitis from cold/Flu.

Down in Tejas, early spring brings strong wind for days, which carries with it virus/bacteria laden dust from the plains. I would catch something very nearly pneumonia-like almost every year from it, and there is an uptick every year for MRSA cases this time of year in Central Tejas as well.   

mnem

Probably pollen, like in most States of Oz, too!

When I was a kid with what they then termed "Bronchial Asthma", a fair part of the Medical community were smitten with Freud, Jung, & "all the boys in the band", so one theory about Asthma was that it was "all in the "mind", & was the result of some childhood trauma like "your Mum taking your teddy bear away".

Some members of the general public seized on that, & distorted it so that Asthma was a moral failing!
Read some fiction of the time, (or even later), where the Asthmatic kid was the "weakling" who always failed the group.
In reality, Asthmatics are "as tough as old boots"----------they have to be to survive!

Luckily, there were enough sensible medicos & researchers to bring us to the point we are now.
The Ventolin "huffer" was the biggest breakthrough in all that time.

In the early '50s, I was given Phenobarb, which may have worked, but gave me heart palpitations.
This was succeeded by Neo-Eppenine, which came in hard yellow tablets you stuck under your tongue.
They felt as hard as paving slabs, tasted of a mix of saccharine & brass, still gave me heart palpitations, but were effective!

My allergies were to pollens, specifically to Wattle trees & their relatives, of which there are a multitude in Oz, as well as to Superphosphate, & particularly, the industrial pollutants produced whilst manufacturing it.

Asthma also appeared as a complication to the 'flu, etc.

Of course, things have changed these days, to the point that if you casually state you are Asthmatic, the default reaction seems to be:- "OMG! Don't die on me!" !!

[mnementh]

Oh, Tejas is the worst... they have all the usual seasonal allergies as the rest of the world, only longer and more severe. If that were't bad enough, come winter time, the part of the year when most people get a break from their allergens, Tejas has what they call "Mountain Cedar" (a Juniper variant) tree pollen which is a relatively ginormous razor-ball particle very reminiscent in profile to a Coronavirus, only nearly big enough to see with the naked eye.

Plus all the horrible illnesses and disease that go with massive insect populations; every bit of human existence there is carved out of the natural habitat of (and kept only by means of constant, hand-to-hand combat with) ants, roaches (no less than 6 disparate families from the tiny german ones that get into everything to palmetto bugs as big as a pickle), crickets/grasshoppers, millipedes, spiders, mosquitoes, hornets and every other kind of flying stinging thing you can imagine. And those are just the ones I knew aboot and haven't since blotted from my memory in defense of my own sanity. 

Oh, and chronic mold/mildew from seasonal flooding... and then on top of that the chemical pollution from being the heart of natural gas & oil production/refinery and the concomitant chemical mega-factories with reactor tanks the size of most municipal water cisterns and... well... you get the idea.

On top of that, it is one of the biggest, best-funded well-heads of the current radical ultra-right-wing movement in politics, seeking to burn every social support network we've struggled to create in the last century down to the ground and replace it with for-profit corporate substitutes...

Texas is toxic... environmentally, socially, economically, and especially politically.

Even if we hadn't made it up here, so glad to be away. It is just a great big pressure cooker of desperation unless you're one of the chosen few who've been graced with corporate favor.

mnem
 

[mnementh]

If you have no capacitance meter a genuine DE-5000 is a good choice. If you already have a good LCR meter the ESR 70 is a good option.

If you have a good LCR meter why would you need a ESR70 ? smaller ? easier to manipulate and take less place on the bench ?

To measure ESR 
I said LCR meter not LCR ESR meter  your other points are a good reasons too.

ESR is the same as the series resistance (Rs). Normally a good LCR meter can measure series resistance adequately.

From IET LCR primer (https://www.ietlabs.com/pdf/application_notes/030122%20IET%20LCR%20PRIMER%201st%20Edition.pdf)

I never heard of "LCR ESR meter", do you have a example?

Normally, modern LCR meter measure impedance and shouldn't have any problem giving you Rs (ESR). A lot of ESR meter actually estimate Rs using different techniques and that's why they can't measure anything else.

I suspect what he meant was a LCR/ESR meter; as in a single device which combines the two functions. These are common nowadays, they weren't always.

When ESR meters as commonly used in electronics repair were first devised, they showed two parameters: Capacitance and ESR. They worked on capacitors, period.

Some LCR Meters, particularly older laboratory units, use a substitution bridge to determine the value of the DUT and don't actually offer ESR or Tan δ parameters.

It is only later models which can use the magic of cheap microprocessors and multiple ADCs which can offer all the above in a single device, even giving all these parameters in one test.

Or is that not the question you were asking...?

mnem
 

[capt bullshot]

Yokogawa DL1200A
...

Lucky one, the scope survived that packaging ...

Anyway, @work there's a bunch of Yokogawa scopes floating around, more modern ones including an 8 channel scope with a really large screen. I do avoid using them because of their UI.

[bitseeker]

Yokogawa DL1200A

Okay, as promised and even though it is getting late here (01:22 MEST),
here is the teardown and a little testing of the Yokogawa DL1200A.

...

Congrats on the safe arrival!

That sure is a cool little scope. I'm liking its compact vertical format. The button layout and all the same size and shape is interesting, though. Just what I need...another scope.

[bitseeker]

Cerebus won the Keysight scope ! 

"ONCE and ONCE ONLY" What? That's what you said to post! 

WINNER WINNER CHICKEN DINNER!

Congratulations, Cerebus! Way to go! I couldn't believe my eyes when your name showed up in the Wobulator window. I look forward to hearing your impressions of the scope.

Funny that Dave figured you post in this thread. But of course you do!

[bitseeker]

PSA: In case you didn't see it in the upper-right corner of the forum, email notification of PMs isn't currently working. So, if you PM me, my reply may be delayed. 


Believe it or not, the glossary got some new terms today. Thanks mnem!

see: ACCD, CAM, DETMA

[psykok]

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

mnem
*marginally interested*

Actually the other way around

I had two of these MyFord lathes, they are not bad but in the same size range nothing compared to a good Swiss lathe  .... sorry 

[Bad_Driver]

Here my 50 cents to the LCR decision board 

Last year I run into trouble with SPSU caps and needed a LCR meter. First choice was the DE-5000 but it is hard to get
in some parts of the world (import tax etc.). I found the following thread here:

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/review-and-tear-down-of-uni-t-ut612-lcr-meter/

As far as I found out both are based on the same chip. The only down side for me are the bad tweezers which came with the device
but in the mean time I found very good ones (kelvin style) at Aliexpress. (UNI-T UT-L61)

After some month I'm pretty happy with the UT612, may be you find time to read thru the eevblog-topic I linked in.
For my (not professional) use it's doing very well.

[tautech]

Cerebus won the Keysight scope ! 

"ONCE and ONCE ONLY" What? That's what you said to post! 

WINNER WINNER CHICKEN DINNER!

Congratulations, Cerebus! Way to go! I couldn't believe my eyes when your name showed up in the Wobulator window. I look forward to hearing your impressions of the scope.

Funny that Dave figured you post in this thread. But of course you do!

He didn't. I spotted Dave's announcement in the draw thread, quoted it and dragged it here to share with our TEA brothers and where Cerebus for sure would get to see it.   

Funny he spotted it here and then checked his emails. 

[psykok]

Couldn't disagree with this more.

Nice rant. So, which one should I get?

The LCR45 is the only one that has a comparable feature set, yet it loses out on 4-wire measurement. It's still impressive, and I'd buy it in an instant if I had not been given the DE-5000 as a birthday present.  Eleshop has the LCR45 for 78€ ex VAT, which is a very good price, and inside the EU. An especially good price compared to their price for the DE-5000, which is a whopping 180€. 

I probably would go for the DCA75 instead, since the LCR vector is occupied at my bench. The DCA75 fills a hole in my instrument park, and that is what counts.

And I still like my DE-5000 

Me too, my DE-5000 is serving me well since a couple of years.
The only complaints I have is the 20000uf limitation.

I often have to test big caps and to do that you need a way more expensive test instrument.

[bitseeker]

He didn't. I spotted Dave's announcement in the draw thread, quoted it and dragged it here to share with our TEA brothers and where Cerebus for sure would get to see it.   

Funny he spotted it here and then checked his emails. 

In the live giveaway video, when Dave saw how many posts Cerebus has, he mentioned that Cerebus probably posts in the TEA thread. 

[tautech]

He didn't. I spotted Dave's announcement in the draw thread, quoted it and dragged it here to share with our TEA brothers and where Cerebus for sure would get to see it.   

Funny he spotted it here and then checked his emails. 

In the live giveaway video, Dave mentioned that Cerebus probably posts in the TEA thread. 

Ah, OK I haven't watched it. 

[bitseeker]

No worries. It was exciting to see a TEA member win!