ESR Meter: worth the investment or not?

smalltownguy2

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To buy or not to buy, that is the question.

ESR Meter or Capacitor checking meter - should I get one?

Given the shelf life of most capacitors is less than most of our hobby toys have been alive, is it really even worth it? Capacitors cost so little, it almost seems more worthy to just shotgun everything when doing capacitor work.

Opinions anyone?
 
My ESR meter is one of my most used tools. It's awesome for so many things. I have an older version of the build-it-yourself kit, and could not be happier with it.

It's awesome for a quick-and-dirty test of a board when you think the problem might be deeper than just caps. Helps eliminate random cap replacements when you are hunting down issues.

Honestly, it's one of the best investments I've made.
 
I have the Anatek Blue ESR meter and it works very well. I printed up a different chart for mine though. I need to pick up a ring tester...

I use my ESR meter for chassis which I can't locate a capkit for. I check all of the capacitors and replace the bad ones or the ones with a low esr reading. It's also good for cheking caps on game PCB's. No sense in replacing a cap to rule it out as the issue everytime.
 
ESR Meter..... wishin' I had one right now. :)

Borrowed a friend of mines Blue ESR meter a while back and it was extremely helpful.
Shotgunning an arcade monitor is one thing, but start working on other stuff like radios, TV's, computer monitors, etc, etc.....that's another story.
 
i love my peak atlas esr 70

here:
http://www.peakelec.co.uk/acatalog/jz_esr70.html

bought 25 supposedly brand new, 15,000uf 25v capacitors from a vendor. 80% were waaaaay out of specification and no good. sent them back for new stock but i think just catching that problem alone has already paid for my meter

imagine what kind of headache installing bad capacitors just on one board alone would cause ?

my only complaint with the atlas ESR 70 is the auto-shutoff is too short. i keep having to turn it back on if im doing a long sit down capacitor testing session

verifying a shorted/bad capacitor condition is worth it's weight in gold
 
ESR Meter..... wishin' I had one right now. :)

Borrowed a friend of mines Blue ESR meter a while back and it was extremely helpful.
Shotgunning an arcade monitor is one thing, but start working on other stuff like radios, TV's, computer monitors, etc, etc.....that's another story.

Yeah, if all you do is cap kits on arcade monitors, I'd say you probably don't need an ESR meter, since you're just replacing all those 30-year-old caps regardless.

I also have the Blue ESR meter and mostly use it when working on computer motherboards, power supplies and such. I like it - it's easy to use and is inexpensive, especially if you assemble it yourself. If you can solder, it's actually a fun little project to build it.
 
I have an 88 and would not be without it. I just wish the leads were a little wider. Great for fixing boards. I agree, Cap kits/Rejuvinators are your best bet on Monitors, not worth the time checking the caps

I also picked up there short detector and love it. I have found more shorted parts in less time. No more lifting up leads or cutting B+ traces trying to find the shorted part, especialy on the multi layered boards.

http://www.eds-inc.com/88users.html

An Interesting article on ESR

http://www.electronicrepairguide.com/esr-meter.html


RJ
 
Yeah, if all you do is cap kits on arcade monitors, I'd say you probably don't need an ESR meter, since you're just replacing all those 30-year-old caps regardless.

I agree, Cap kits/Rejuvinators are your best bet on Monitors, not worth the time checking the caps[/url]


RJ

I agree, but I happen to know some widely respected monitor techs who use the ESR to check caps and who don't install complete kits. They replace the "bad" ones, and leave the ones that check out as "good".

BTW - I install full kits...
 
i love my peak atlas esr 70

here:
http://www.peakelec.co.uk/acatalog/jz_esr70.html


imagine what kind of headache installing bad capacitors just on one board alone would cause ?

my only complaint with the atlas ESR 70 is the auto-shutoff is too short. i keep having to turn it back on if im doing a long sit down capacitor testing session

verifying a shorted/bad capacitor condition is worth it's weight in gold

Yep I have the same unit, excellent and very accurate.
 
I have the blue kit from Anatek and love it. :)

It works GREAT for troubleshooting shorted capacitors and solder joints. After all, ESR meters are only high frequency milliohm meters that read down to .01 ohms (If you have the 2 digit digital type like the blue kit)

I've used it to find a shorted tantalum capacitor that was causing a power supply shutdown on a Seattle boardset and to find solder bridges on a Galaga board that someone else worked on.

All you do is probe around the problem areas/traces until you find the lowest resistance reading. In the case of the Seattle board, it was on the 12v line so I measured across the caps on that line until I found the cap that had the lowest resistance. Pulled it and the short was gone.

For the Galaga board, I measured between the 2 data lines on the main CPU and each EPROM until I found the spot with the lowest resistance, desoldered/lifted the socket, and removed the small bridge between the top pad and the trace going between the pads. :)
 
I agree, but I happen to know some widely respected monitor techs who use the ESR to check caps and who don't install complete kits. They replace the "bad" ones, and leave the ones that check out as "good".

And less than a year later the caps that checked good that are in the same age group as the ones that were found to be bad with the ESR, go bad themselves. I look at a cap kit as an ounce of pervention. $8 to $12 now in parts, while I have the board out of the game and on the bench, verses another trip, another day on the bench on the same board not getting repaid to fix the same board. It is different when you work for someone else, verses yourself. I will have to look into the Blue ESR meter. I like the lead lenght.

RJ
 
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