Capacitor ESR Meters?

Anyone have any info on capacitor equivalent series resistance meters? I
thought Capacitor Wizard used to be highly recommended. What are the
recommended units today? Wondering if there was something better for the
money now.

Sometimes I mess with older computers or controls that don't seem to work
for whatever reason, I'm thinking capacitors would be likely to go bad
over time as far as ESR going to high.

RogerN

Anyone have any info on capacitor equivalent series resistance meters? I
thought Capacitor Wizard used to be highly recommended. What are the
recommended units today? Wondering if there was something better for the
money now.

Anyone have any info on capacitor equivalent series resistance meters? I
thought Capacitor Wizard used to be highly recommended. What are the
recommended units today? Wondering if there was something better for the
money now.

Sometimes I mess with older computers or controls that don't seem to work
for whatever reason, I'm thinking capacitors would be likely to go bad over
time as far as ESR going to high.

RogerN

Anyone have any info on capacitor equivalent series resistance meters? I
thought Capacitor Wizard used to be highly recommended. What are the
recommended units today? Wondering if there was something better for the
money now.

Sometimes I mess with older computers or controls that don't seem to work
for whatever reason, I'm thinking capacitors would be likely to go bad over
time as far as ESR going to high.

RogerN



You must be careful with in circuit testers. Make sure you get one that

Anyone have any info on capacitor equivalent series resistance meters? I
thought Capacitor Wizard used to be highly recommended. What are the
recommended units today? Wondering if there was something better for the
money now.

Sometimes I mess with older computers or controls that don't seem to work
for whatever reason, I'm thinking capacitors would be likely to go bad over
time as far as ESR going to high.

RogerN wrote:

Anyone have any info on capacitor equivalent series resistance meters? I
thought Capacitor Wizard used to be highly recommended. What are the
recommended units today? Wondering if there was something better for the
money now.

Sometimes I mess with older computers or controls that don't seem to work
for whatever reason, I'm thinking capacitors would be likely to go bad
over time as far as ESR going to high.

RogerN



You must be careful with in circuit testers. Make sure you get one that
does not put any more than 1.5 volts in the circuit for testing otherwise,
you can damage components in many today's toys.

John Larkin wrote:

On Sat, 6 Feb 2010 16:15:14 -0600, "RogerN" <regor_at_midwest.net> wrote:


Anyone have any info on capacitor equivalent series resistance meters? I
thought Capacitor Wizard used to be highly recommended. What are the
recommended units today? Wondering if there was something better for the
money now.

Sometimes I mess with older computers or controls that don't seem to work
for whatever reason, I'm thinking capacitors would be likely to go bad
over time as far as ESR going to high.

RogerN




Do you need an ESR meter? Usually one can just look at the voltage
across the cap, operating, with a scope.

John

I do that also john.

I use my HP sig gen with my tek 350Mhz dual trace (because that's on
the bench) into a fixture I made just to do those things. I set the gen
for 100mv out.. One BNC from the scope and one BNC from the gen into a
little plastic util box, 2 probes coming out for the test, divider network
inside :)

What's really unique about that is, I've used that to find SR.

On Sat, 6 Feb 2010 16:15:14 -0600, "RogerN" <regor_at_midwest.net> wrote:


Anyone have any info on capacitor equivalent series resistance meters? I
thought Capacitor Wizard used to be highly recommended. What are the
recommended units today? Wondering if there was something better for the
money now.

Sometimes I mess with older computers or controls that don't seem to work
for whatever reason, I'm thinking capacitors would be likely to go bad over
time as far as ESR going to high.

RogerN




Do you need an ESR meter? Usually one can just look at the voltage
across the cap, operating, with a scope.

John

I do that also john.

On Sat, 6 Feb 2010 16:15:14 -0600, "RogerN" <regor_at_midwest.net> wrote:


Anyone have any info on capacitor equivalent series resistance meters? I
thought Capacitor Wizard used to be highly recommended. What are the
recommended units today? Wondering if there was something better for the
money now.

Sometimes I mess with older computers or controls that don't seem to work
for whatever reason, I'm thinking capacitors would be likely to go bad
over
time as far as ESR going to high.

Look around for Bob Parker's ESR meter kit; it's also knows as the Dick
Smith kit as DSE was an early source for it.

There seems to be a "space age" version out now in a cool blue case.
Doesn't have quite the nerdish cred of the earlier project box. ;-)

http://www.anatekcorp.com/blueesr.htm for one source (among many).

--
Rich Webb Norfolk, VA

"Rich Webb" <bbew.ar_at_mapson.nozirev.ten> wrote in message
news:0ftrm5d1am2o2k2k7ns707k6rn2ucd30od_at_4ax.com...
On Sat, 6 Feb 2010 16:15:14 -0600, "RogerN" <regor_at_midwest.net> wrote:


Anyone have any info on capacitor equivalent series resistance meters? I
thought Capacitor Wizard used to be highly recommended. What are the
recommended units today? Wondering if there was something better for the
money now.

Sometimes I mess with older computers or controls that don't seem to work
for whatever reason, I'm thinking capacitors would be likely to go bad
over
time as far as ESR going to high.

Look around for Bob Parker's ESR meter kit; it's also knows as the Dick
Smith kit as DSE was an early source for it.

There seems to be a "space age" version out now in a cool blue case.
Doesn't have quite the nerdish cred of the earlier project box. ;-)

http://www.anatekcorp.com/blueesr.htm for one source (among many).

--
Rich Webb Norfolk, VA

AFAIK the Bob Parker/DSE ESR meter is no longer produced, I got one from a
UK distributor that had remaining stock.

On Sun, 7 Feb 2010 18:34:13 -0000, "ian field"
gangprobing.alien_at_ntlworld.com> wrote:


"Rich Webb" <bbew.ar_at_mapson.nozirev.ten> wrote in message
news:0ftrm5d1am2o2k2k7ns707k6rn2ucd30od_at_4ax.com...
On Sat, 6 Feb 2010 16:15:14 -0600, "RogerN" <regor_at_midwest.net> wrote:


Anyone have any info on capacitor equivalent series resistance meters?
I
thought Capacitor Wizard used to be highly recommended. What are the
recommended units today? Wondering if there was something better for
the
money now.

Sometimes I mess with older computers or controls that don't seem to
work
for whatever reason, I'm thinking capacitors would be likely to go bad
over
time as far as ESR going to high.

Look around for Bob Parker's ESR meter kit; it's also knows as the Dick
Smith kit as DSE was an early source for it.

There seems to be a "space age" version out now in a cool blue case.
Doesn't have quite the nerdish cred of the earlier project box. ;-)

http://www.anatekcorp.com/blueesr.htm for one source (among many).

--
Rich Webb Norfolk, VA

AFAIK the Bob Parker/DSE ESR meter is no longer produced, I got one from a
UK distributor that had remaining stock.

Correct, they've moved on to the new version in the transparent case.
http://www.rf4u.co.uk/products.html

I use a General Radio Type 1611-A capacitance test bridge.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kb1awv/2085909780/in/set-72157603057525609/

On Sun, 07 Feb 2010 16:44:25 -0700, "Paul Hovnanian P.E."
Paul_at_Hovnanian.com> wrote:

I use a General Radio Type 1611-A capacitance test bridge.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kb1awv/2085909780/in/set-72157603057525609/

Photo technique: Get slightly off-axis with the camera, and turn out
any room lights. I then process thru Paint Shop Pro to tweak the
brightness and contrast. (I just got Photo Shop, but don't know how
to use it yet :-)

...Jim Thompson