On Tuesday 08 March 2016 12:56:41 Mark wrote: > On 03/08/2016 12:42 PM, Gene Heskett wrote: > >> Gene, > >> > >> Check out the Blue ESR meter. Does the same as the Cap Wizard, and > >> is only $84. It is a kit, but I built mine a few years ago, and > >> anyone that knows which end of a soldering iron to hold can > >> assemble this guy. This meter has gotten excellent reviews from all > >> over. > >> > >> <http://www.flippers.com/BlueEsr.html> > > > > I hadn't been aware of that one yet. Its 100mv voltage may turn on > > any schotkey diodes a wee bit, something the 85 mv of the wizard is > > far less likely to do. > > > > Bookmarked, thanks a bunch. I will order me one when the 2mm wide > > clips are back in stock. The wizard, FWIW, gold plates all the > > probe stuffs to negate any resistance buildup due to oxidation, > > where I note in the pix that these appear to be chromed and will > > need more care to prevent chipping the chrome off which also has a > > higher bulk resistance than the gold. > > > > But I like, and at less than half the wizard, will get one. > > > >>> Cheers, Gene Heskett > > Never had any issues with it turning on unwanted components. Works > fine in circuit too. A lot of folks, on both the Tek and HP/Agilent > groups are using the instrument, and I kinda went with the flow and > bought a kit. An hour or two in the afternoon, and it's all assembled > up and ready to use. Very handy little instruments, these hand held > ESR meters. > > Mark
Yes, they do an excellent job of measuring the most common electrolytic capacitor failure, detecting problems 2 years before a loss of capacitance will be measured by the common DVM in capacitance mode. They don't have a range to check the psu stuff, so generally speaking, that mode is similar in usefullness to those appendages on the belly of a boar hog. That $179 Wizard probably saved the station 500k USD in keeping about 15 DVC-PRO broadcast VCR's going in years of their heyday. Capacitors and headwheels still cost us at least $100k though. Pinch rollers and other rubber parts were peanuts in comparison. Panasonic usually asked about $1500-$2500 a board for a new one, with 11 to 14 boards in a machine, and a minimum of a thou & parts at MSRP to repair one sent in. That sort of outgo resulted in permission to buy the wizard in about 30 seconds. Wasn't hard at all. :) We still have, kept them like trophy deer horns, 3 ea, 2 lb coffee cans 2/3rds full of those capacitors that failed. Thats a boatload because most were smaller than the eraser on a #2 lead pencil, so there are thousands in those coffee cans. All surface mounted too. And yours truly changed about 75% of them, with my assistant doing the last 25% after I gave him my office keys & a badly worn red office chair at a retirement party, on June 30th 2002. But by 2004 much of that video gear had been replaced with servers with banks of hard drives. Even the news cameras were insertable HD storage by then, still are today but replaced with full hidef stuff now. Cheers, Gene Heskett -- "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed Howdershelt (Author) Genes Web page <http://geneslinuxbox.net:6309/gene> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Transform Data into Opportunity. Accelerate data analysis in your applications with Intel Data Analytics Acceleration Library. Click to learn more. http://makebettercode.com/inteldaal-eval _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
