John Larkin wrote:

The problem with all these circuits is the simplicity of the meter
needle: it can't untangle the inductive, capacitive, and resistive
components. If I were routinely repairing stuff that may have bad
caps, I'd build a scope probe that injected a square wave current into
the tip and displayed the result on the scope, with switchable
frequency between, say, 1 KHz and 100 KHz. The scope vertical gain
switch adds a lot of rangeability. This could be useful for all sorts
of things, not just caps. Diodes, too!

--- esl
/\ --------
/ \ /
/ \ ------- slope = 1/C
/ \ /
/ ------ -- esr
-----------

John


http://members.ozemail.com.au/~bobpar/esrmeter.htm is one of the most
popular ESR meters in the electronics service industry.


--
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