Capacitance meter?

Solder

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Can anyone recommend a really good capacitance meter (for testing all kinds of caps), preferably that can be fairly accurately used with the caps still in circuit (if that's possible, which I don't think it is)?

Or should I be looking to get an ESR meter?
 
ESR meter is the only way to go...

DMMs will tell you the capacitance, but not measure ESR... They will also tell you resistance which is useful when a cap is shorted, but will not measure ESR.

The ESR rating of a bad cap will go up. The higher the resistance the more heat the cap generates internally until it gets hot enough to boil its electrolyte at which point it either splits its top open or blows the rubber plug out of its arse.
 
There's a comparison of some ESR meters here which might be helpful while shopping for one: http://www.anatekcorp.com/esr_compare.htm

I have the Blue ESR meter and I like it. Assembly was easy (although you can buy it fully assembled too), it's very simple to use, and as far as I can tell it's accurate. I've fixed many arcade PCBs, monitors, computer power supplies, motherboards, etc. by replacing the caps it indicated were bad.
 
Thanks.

Any recommendations of a good ESR meter please? Was tempted some time ago to get one of the kits, but would rather it was ready built and tested, etc.
 
Thanks.

Any recommendations of a good ESR meter please? Was tempted some time ago to get one of the kits, but would rather it was ready built and tested, etc.

Anatek sells their Blue one already built if you want to go that route. It just costs a bit more...
 
There's a comparison of some ESR meters here which might be helpful while shopping for one: http://www.anatekcorp.com/esr_compare.htm

I have the Blue ESR meter and I like it. Assembly was easy (although you can buy it fully assembled too), it's very simple to use, and as far as I can tell it's accurate. I've fixed many arcade PCBs, monitors, computer power supplies, motherboards, etc. by replacing the caps it indicated were bad.

Looks good, but apparently the Blue ESR meter is designed specifically for electrolytics and gives erroneous readings on non-electrolytics below 10uf. Bit of a pity that as I was hoping to get a meter that handled everything that old PCBs could throw at it. Or isn't it as 'bad' as the summary on that page makes out?
 
Thanks.

Any recommendations of a good ESR meter please? Was tempted some time ago to get one of the kits, but would rather it was ready built and tested, etc.

If you do a lot of monitor work then the Atlas ESR70 is the way
to go. I dropped my ESR60 one too many times and finally broke it
but got nearly 5 years out of it. The ESR70 measures the ESR in circuit
and many times the cap value as well. The nicest new feature is the auto sense
so you can move from cap to cap without having to push the test button. The
audio signals are also a help.

It measures as far down as 1 uf. If you need to do something besides electrolytics
then any good meter will work. If you want to test those in circuit then you will
need a scope or a Huntron.

I do a lot of monitors and PCB work so the $125 is well justified.

http://www.anatekcorp.com/atlasesr70.htm

JD
 
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Looks good, but apparently the Blue ESR meter is designed specifically for electrolytics and gives erroneous readings on non-electrolytics below 10uf. Bit of a pity that as I was hoping to get a meter that handled everything that old PCBs could throw at it. Or isn't it as 'bad' as the summary on that page makes out?

Below 10uF? Eff, if I found a non-ceramic with a capacitance below 10uF I'd swap it out for a ceramic just out of principle. And ceramic don't fail high-ESR -- they fail shorted (which a DMM will pick up immediately) or explode (you'd have to be blind to miss it).
 
I'd love to see a few of these ESR testers in action on youtube.com showing a good capacitor passing a test inline. As well as examples of bad ones failing.
I guess you know what site I'm going to next.
If there is none, consider making a short video and posting it.
 
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