Great explanation. When you do the video on the relays can you also discuss the equipment you use to unsolder and solder circuit board components? Thanks.
I wonder about those two large sized capacitors that are said to be only 22uF....they must be pretty high voltage to justify their large physical size! Ir maybe they aren't actually 22uF..... I briefly had one of these, which by the way is probably NOT 'made by' GFE. It is available with branding for so many companies that who knows which company actually makes it. If you buy it branded as B+K Precision (a well known US brand), it will cost nearly twice what is quoted in this video. It is a nice enough ESR tester, but the down side is that it only has the tweezers type test clip, which limits its use to physically smaller capacitors that also happen to be in the 'radial' style cans, as opposed to 'axial' style cans. With many kinds of electronics, that would mean that the majority of capacitors in need of testing can't be tested with THIS product. And BTW, before I returned mine to the seller, I tried extending the tweezers tips with short alligator clip test leads, and it was not able to zero out the small added resistance, and thus it failed every cap I tried it on. I ended up buying a product by EZM called "ESR-2501C ESR Meter" which only costs about $40. It tests the same range of capacitances as THIS one, and has a similar chart on the front, but instead of an LED bar graph is has a two-line backlit LCD display, and you can read the actual ESR values to two decimal places of resolution, and you also have more control and flexibility of zeroing out external resistances, so different test lead/clip/probe arrangements can be used successfully, and it comes with test probes and alligator clips (but NOT a tweezers clip). Both THAT product and THIS product can also measure DCR (DC resistance), although this video does not mention it. When a capacitor has a partial breakdown of the internal structure, its internal DC resistance between the two leads (which should be quite high) can drop down to a small number of Ohms. Even with that, it can still function somewhat as a capacitor, and might read the correct capacitance on a different meter, and might even pass the ESR test on this product (or the EZM one) because of the way these tests are done. With older electrolytic caps, or any that you have cause to wonder about, it is important to do a DCR test as well as the ECR test. I don't know why this point was not made in this video. THIS product has a DCR&ESR mode, where it tests DCR first, and only proceeds to test ESR if the DCR test was 'good'. Another point not covered in this video: ECR is tested with an AC signal, so polarity of the test leads on polarized capacitors is not important. But when testing DCR, the test signal is a DC voltage, albeit a very low one, so it is best to observe test lead polarity.
Great tutorial. You can also test the resistance and microhenries of the inductors with the esr meter. The reactance formula is 2𝛑FL. That would be 2 x Pi x frequency of esr meter x 100 (uH) Just plug it in. R=0.628 X L(uH) L(uH)=R(ohms)/0.628
I just got into electronics repair with zero former knowledge, I have been reading the book "How to Diagnose and Fix Everything Electronic" and that was the only other material that talks about ESR (Equivalent Series Resistance?) troubleshooting and ESR meter. So this was very helpful, thanks! What is the DCR&ESR setting for on the device?
What about IC’s and Transistors? Do I need an Oscilloscope? ESR and Multimeter not good for that? Thanks for providing this information. Liked and Subscribed Michael
Have you looked at newer appliances? They're all potted to hell so you can't get to the board. They're also using coded chips so you can't swap boards. So annoying, this should be illegal. We need Right to Repair!
