Where are all the ESR meters?

Guess the enthusiasm fizzled when you got into the nitty-gritty of it all...

 

They couldn't find it already done in AoE ;-)

Where's the meat?

Where's the fence?

Where are the designers ?

...Jim Thompson

 

I posted a schematic to abse. Nobody else did anything but blather
about kelvin clips and dreams of ideal behavior.

I note that you didn't post a design, either.

John

 

I'll post mine, when I get enough energy to transcribe
it from my paper scratchings, calculations and notes.
Remember, it must be four terminal, and handle high DC
voltages when probing in-circuit storage capacitors.

 

How high is "high"?

...Jim Thompson

 

Why? So you can plagiarize someone else's work, instead of doing
your own?


--
Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I've got my DD214 to
prove it.
Member of DAV #85.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

 

If it was a trivial problem, we would all have $5 meters
that did it well.

 

I think that the requirement that it must handle "high DC
voltages" is the easiest to justify eliminating, to open up
the possibilities. My milliamp meter won't do that, but I
still find it useful, even though I have to change the fuse,
occasionally.

 

Yep- more like a BOM graphic...

Right- nada.

Nope, not yet.

 

Do you do any work at all?

 

The meters for sale to the techies are trivial, and they sell for around
$200.

 

Actually, I've posted two so far... a simple analog thing with a
phase-sensitive detector (on 7/5) and a digital multifunction meter
(on 7/15).

I thought you didn't design electronics.

John

 

It was a pun! No, wait, it was a palindrome!

If exaggerating for effect is called hyperbole, what is
under-exaggeration called? Hypobole?

 

Those methods are too direct. All you end up with is an abbreviated
impedance analyzer.

 

With the goodies available these days, the hardware would be
near-trivial, for either a frequency or time-domain version. The
firmware would be work, but firmware is free to manufacture!

John

 

Do you? Its well known on this group that I am now 100% disabled,
after almost 40 years of working in the electronics industry. Also, I
never claimed to be a circuit designer. yes, i have designed and built
equipment I couldn't find, or get before a critical deadline but it was
never for public consumption. Almost all were one off, and for whoever
I was working for at that time. A wide variety items, but of very
little interest to others.


--
Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I've got my DD214 to
prove it.
Member of DAV #85.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

 

That was why the Bob parker design uses a .5 V test signal. A pair
of anti parallel power diodes will discharge a capacitor. Anatek had a
modification kit for sale to add the protection diodes.

They compare several popular ESR meters here:

http://www.anatekcorp.com/testequipment/esrcompar.htm


--
Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I've got my DD214 to
prove it.
Member of DAV #85.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

 

200KV?

 

How many 200 KV Electrolytics have you seen?


--
Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I've got my DD214 to
prove it.
Member of DAV #85.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida