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I’ve been meaning to post about this, finally getting around to it.
We’ve all got capacitors throughout our centers performing various functions. These are often the culprits of certain problems, especially with older equipment. How do you reliably test them? Yes, you can use a multimeter to test ohms, or if you’ve got a more modern multimeter maybe it does capacitance. But that’s not enough. What you really need to test for is capacitance(i.e. the capacitance value, example 250uF) AND ESR(Effective Series Resistance) AND voltage loss. I’ve got an old Fluke 83 that has served me well. It does have a capacitance setting which only tells me capacitance. I’ve also got an ESR meter which gives me an approximation of capacitance vs. ESR. (Honestly that meter was a waste of $30.)
BUT! MTester does all of the above very well and then some. I got this thing off eBay for $10! For capacitors it gives you capacitance, ESR and Vloss, and it’s very accurate. It will measure most discrete components up to 3 leads in circuit, so you can even test transistors & thyristors & various diodes with this thing.
So the one I bought was $10.
The only way to test components was to remove them and insert the leads into that light blue clasp.
Well, I noticed there were pads on the little circuit board labelled 1, 2 & 3. So I tested them, and sure enough they coincided with slots 1, 2 & 3 in the clasp. So I pimped out my little meter by soldering on some clip leads to those pads.
Now I can simply clip onto components and press the blue button to test them. Just need to make sure and short out capacitors prior to testing. Other components, no worries. This little meter is invaluable.
Here’s a bad cap on a foul light board. Should read 240uF and less than 5%Vloss.
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