New tester from E-Bay..........

Hi gang,

Sorry I haven't been on sooner. Got a good sinus infection that kept me down for a bit. It's starting to leave me now, thankfully.

After playing around with this tester, for now I have formulated this plan. Since there is no dedicated standard chart for ESR ratings across the board, I am gonna use what chart I do have as a guide only. If it's within 20%, I'll keep it and determine if it's OK by the one method that will be exact! Using it in the circuit and seeing if it works OK. Overall, I am pleased with this device so far.

I wondered about lithium as well. Though, it was after the fact. I saw the holder and thought regular or rechargeable AA type batteries. No big deal though as I don't plan to use it away from any power source for now. Maybe someday, I'll get a couple of lithium ones for it

DUH!!
Yes, looking at the second picture does show the holder.

Still the question of Lithium?

Nope. You can see the AA holder in the photos I posted.

Curious as to why lithium batteries?
Is it button cell holders built in the card?

Didn't get a lot of time last weekend to do much. I did try a couple of things and do know for sure that these definitely won't work testing anything 'in circuit'. When I have decent time to spend with this again, I'll see if I can make sense of the semi English explanation on the e-bay listing to see if maybe I am missing something.

Cheers for now gang!

I will add.......... I did not read the listing totally. I saw it used a double A battery. What I didn't realize is that it needs a lithium battery. I don't have any like that here at the moment, so I have been using a USB cable for power connected to USB/AC adapter.

Hi Cliff. Haven't done anything this week , but will on the weekend for sure. I am definitely enjoying what use of it I have had so far in doing a few tests on some loose parts I have here. Really, the only issue when you come down to it is ESR readings, and, it's not really the fault of the tester. It's having so many different settings based on what each company lists as a safe reading.

I'll post some photos of tests on other items this weekend as I play around.

ve1arn:

How's your meter doing? Any problems?
Are you going to give us a report? Just curious.
If it works for your needs, I might consider getting one. 
I'm not as interested in ESR, as the other functions.
I see there are several brands, I might ask a guy that has tests on YouTube to do some testing.

I faced that problem with the ESR meter when we got one where I used to work.
My solution was to only buy quality 'lytics and then compare the ESR of a new one with the one I was testing.
That was pretty darned conclusive- and accurate.
 If you use it enough, you won't have to compare too often with experience.
 Note: the .47, .1 etc. ELECTROLYTICS measure extremely high even new. I found them in the H drive circuits in most TV sets. They failed so often it was my standard practice to replace them as PM, to save the customer a new horiz output xistor and also re-solder the drive tx leads as part of the PM too.
1 mfd will read higher too.
When in doubt, compare with new, fresh stock caps.

You might find your answer here:

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Should answer the question that it's subjective, but there is some math shown. And their using the frequency of  100 KHz. And as you know reactance changes with frequency so it's all up to the companies that manufacture the testers and capacitors.

Cliff, I did check out the Nichicon and Rubicon site and found everything i need to know about these items................ except for recommended ESR ratings.  

Gonna keep looking though.

One of the cap checkers states that a standard used is generally accepted as testing at 100Khz.
I think that a compilation of numbers would be nice.
Maybe write several capacitor manufactures requesting a chart of ESR values and what standards are used.
They may have those already online. Sounds like a good task.

To add a bit more confusion to the mix, in checking some of the ESR charts that are on line, it seems that each manufacturer of ESR meters sets a different rating for the same cap that is different from another maker's. It would be nice to have a basic guideline to go by for these things so I can decide which cap to heave, or keep.

When Heathkit made a cap checker, the apprentice school for our shop ordered about 35 of them and the students assembled them as a class project. When they finished them, they were allowed to keep them till the end of the semester. Afterwards they were given to our Calibration Lab. Then anyone could check them out for use. 

The connectors were gold plated metal strips. The strips were in a form of a U shape that protruded out to a couple of slots in the case side by side with a space in between for separation,  each slot had two of these U shaped strips that touched to gather. They had a springlike action, so a capacitor lead could slide into the slot and have contact on both sides. The meters also had a set of test leads that were connected to a small circuit card that could be inserted into the slots.

The idea was that the test leads were spaced at a predetermined spacing to reduce any variation of capacitance interaction of lead spacing. There were still fluctuations in readings, but taken into consideration of tolerances allowed.

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Thought I would take a chance on this device. Seems to work like it should with one exception so far. The so called English instructions are not a big help.

The issue is measuring electrolytic caps. I'm thinking the cables are affecting the reading. Have a look at the photos. It's the same cap. One connected by the supplied cable and again directly plugged into the test jacks.

Opinions gladly accepted.