ESR Tester, cheap

[Sofa Slug]

Just curious if anyone has used this particular ESR meter. The price is
right...

scroll about 1/2 way down the page:
http://www.matelectronics.com/acatalog/Mat_Electronics_Test_Equipment___Other_61.html

 

[Dave McMullen]

Just curious if anyone has used this particular ESR meter. The price is
right...

scroll about 1/2 way down the page:
http://www.matelectronics.com/acatalog/Mat_Electronics_Test_Equipment___Other_61.html

I bought one those about a year ago. If I recall it's made in china and
branded for MAT. It works well for me and the company is great to do
business with. They also send out catalogs with lots of goodies in it.
Good prices.

 

[Ross Herbert]

Just curious if anyone has used this particular ESR meter. The price is
right...

scroll about 1/2 way down the page:
http://www.matelectronics.com/acatalog/Mat_Electronics_Test_Equipment___Other_61.html

It also comes with the Sun Rise brand on it. Here's some discussion on
the product http://www.badcaps.net/forum/showthread.php?t=2798

Looking at the scale graduations in your pic it would appear to have
extremely poor resolution for caps in the low ESR range. You really
need a meter with an expanded range reading of say 0 - 10 ohms max.
Any higher reading is meaningless since an electro cap with 10 ohms
esr is useless for anything.

 

[John Bachman]

Just curious if anyone has used this particular ESR meter. The price is
right...

scroll about 1/2 way down the page:
http://www.matelectronics.com/acatalog/Mat_Electronics_Test_Equipment___Other_61.html

I bought one of these a year or so ago for the purpose of adding it to
our ESR comparison page www.anatekcorp.com/testequipment/esrcompar.htm
It was so poor that I stopped the testing.

Made in China of the poorest quality components.

There may have been improvemnets since then but I have no interest in
pursueing it.

John
AnaTek Corporation
The Electronic Repair Center at www.anatekcorp.com

 

[Ken G.]

You can waste lots of time ..or.. you can just save up and buy a Cap
Wizard . I have owned one for years now and it never fails me .
The last load of mid 70`s & 80`s jukeboxes i got all had plenty of small
capacitors on and in every circuit board & box .
I never suspected high quality 80`s jukeboxes to have so many bad
capacitors in them . The Cap Wizard made quick help of cleaning up all
of these machines of bad caps .

 

[Meat Plow]

Just curious if anyone has used this particular ESR meter. The price is
right...

scroll about 1/2 way down the page:
http://www.matelectronics.com/acatalog/Mat_Electronics_Test_Equipment___Other_61.html

I own an analog meter Tenma. It works ok but for more accurate results
you'll probably have to spend more than the 100 bucks I paid for mine.

 

[John Bachman]

You can waste lots of time ..or.. you can just save up and buy a Cap
Wizard . I have owned one for years now and it never fails me .
The last load of mid 70`s & 80`s jukeboxes i got all had plenty of small
capacitors on and in every circuit board & box .
I never suspected high quality 80`s jukeboxes to have so many bad
capacitors in them . The Cap Wizard made quick help of cleaning up all
of these machines of bad caps .

You are absolutely correct, Ken, the Cap Wizard was a wonderful design
as was Bob Parker's design from Dick Smith Electronics.

Note that I use the past tense. I sold both of those units for many
years and now both are gone. The Cap Wizard apparantly has
disappeared forever, the DSE version of Bob's design may be
reincarnated. Let us hope so.

John

 

[Ross Herbert]

You are absolutely correct, Ken, the Cap Wizard was a wonderful design
as was Bob Parker's design from Dick Smith Electronics.

Note that I use the past tense. I sold both of those units for many
years and now both are gone. The Cap Wizard apparantly has
disappeared forever, the DSE version of Bob's design may be
reincarnated. Let us hope so.

John

All may not yet be lost
In a recent post on aus electronics NG, the designer, Bob Parker,
replied as follows;

DSE has stopped making kits based on the magazine designs, as you
probably know. Jaycar stopped making ESR meter kits in about 1997.
Altronics are in the midst of gearing up to make ESR meter kits right
now.
I've seen a few brand-new DSE K-7214 ESR meter kits on Ebay.
Are you looking for one, or just curious?

Bob

 

[Sofa Slug]

I bought one of these a year or so ago for the purpose of adding it to
our ESR comparison page www.anatekcorp.com/testequipment/esrcompar.htm
It was so poor that I stopped the testing.

Made in China of the poorest quality components.

There may have been improvemnets since then but I have no interest in
pursueing it.

John
AnaTek Corporation
The Electronic Repair Center at www.anatekcorp.com

John,

Thanks for the comments & link - very informative. Thanks to everyone
else as well ...I especially appreciate all the user feedback.

-S

 

[Ken G.]

Gone forever !!!! i should then grab an extra if i ever see one . I was
thnking of buying an ESR years ago then i walked into one of our small
local repair shops where he had piles of junk in boxes all over the
place andon top was this Cap Wizard along with one of those small
computer monitor testers . 100$ for both .