On Sat, 11 Jul 2015 22:06:30 -0700, Phil Allison wrote:

Cursitor Doom wrote:


Be aware that the ESR meters intended for service work are only
good for electrolytic caps ( regular aluminium and tantalum ) and
interpreting the readings correctly requires significant operator
knowledge and/or a similar electro to compare with.

...Or a table of expected values vs. voltage rating vs. capacitance
-
which comes with the Peak meter.


** IME, such tables are far too vague and out of date for modern
electros.

The goal in servicing & refurbishing work is to find electro caps
that are *on the way out* as well as obviously dead ones.

If in doubt, comparison with a the closest new electro available is a
good move.

Well maybe. But it'll slow the process down massively as it's not just
the capacitance that causes ESR values to change. As you well know.


** See page 9 of the Peak ESR meter user's guide.

http://www.peakelec.co.uk/resources/...erguide_en.pdf

This bit makes no sense to me:

"To allow the self-protection mechanism to function, always ensure that
the Atlas ESR has completed any analysis before connecting the test
probes to a component." :-/