"root" wrote in message
...
When I have encountered power supply problems in the past
I have just replaced all the caps. I have wanted to get
an in-circuit ESR meter but they either came as kits or
were more than I wanted to pay. A while ago someone posted
here that one could get a functional ESR meter from China
for under $30. I hastily did a web search and found this:
http://www.dx.com/p/lcr-t4-meter-tes...ticolor-364576

I ordered one and after several weeks it came today.
I hadn't paid attention to the picture. The device came
without any instructions. There is an EZ-insertion socket
which as far as I can tell utilizes only three pins, say
1,2,3. The unit works fine for testing resistors connected
either from 1-3 or 2-3 or 1-2. I wanted to test some
capacitors in circuit so I cut a clip lead in half and
connected the wire ends to pins 1-3. The device seems
to read electrolytic capacitors as diodes but gives
two uF readings which bear no relationship to the values
written on the capacitors. For example, an 800uF cap
might read 1.3v, 2.1uF.

I am hoping that someone in this group can shed some
light on the device, specifically how it can be used
to tell me which caps have to be replaced in some
device.

Thanks.

They probably will not test devices very well while in the circuit. Not too
many testers will do it either for all components.

There is not too much to the testers. Just hook a component to any of the 3
leads and press the button. Some times it may help to switch the leads
around. This is especially true with some transistors that have lots of
leakage..

You can start here with a youtube video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3dPBnYixs4