Sure could use a inductance meter -
Would this low cost - slow ship meter work for measuring coils?
Uni T UT603 Modern Inductance Capacitance Meter | eBay
Would this low cost - slow ship meter work for measuring coils?
Uni T UT603 Modern Inductance Capacitance Meter | eBay
I just bought an LC meter from Apex Jr. It's a Victor VC6243. Nothing fancy. Works just fine. $50
I would avoid that Uni-T (even though I love my UT61E). In general if you actually need to know the inductance you want to know it at several frequencies. These low level ones often use a single frequency (which can be anything from 100Hz, 120Hz or 1kHz). A good quality inductance meter will test all of these and more (DC Resistance, 10kHz, 100kHz, Q value, etc.). When you need to know the real inductance these things matter as well. Anything less is just basically a toy (or you don't actually need an inductance meter).
Example of a real LCR at a great price ($200):
Link
This meter has DC, 100Hz, 120Hz, 1kHz, 10 Khz, 100kHz, PC Logging, Kelvin leads (important if you want to get an accurate inductance reading, otherwise you get the inductance of the whole system not just the inductor), case, large ranges in capacitance, inductance, higher resolution, etc.
EEVBlog Thread on this meter
Example of a real LCR at a great price ($200):
Link
This meter has DC, 100Hz, 120Hz, 1kHz, 10 Khz, 100kHz, PC Logging, Kelvin leads (important if you want to get an accurate inductance reading, otherwise you get the inductance of the whole system not just the inductor), case, large ranges in capacitance, inductance, higher resolution, etc.
EEVBlog Thread on this meter
warning!
I got email from the seller of the mastech unit. he says
>Thank you very much for your purchase MSTECH MS5308, I
> am very sorry to let you know the manufacturer found a bug in power adapter
> for MS5308, so please do NOT use power adapter for MS5308 LCR meter, it may
> burn your meter, once we have further solution from manufacturer, we will
> let you know and we sincerely apologize for the inconvenience for you,
> please feel free to contact us at support AT aidetek.com if you have any
> further concern regarding this, thank you very much for your >cooperation.
great ;(
glad I didn't even try to use the a/c adapter.
I wonder how many units were broken due to the 'bad' power adapter.
anyway, just be aware of this if you buy this unit.
I got email from the seller of the mastech unit. he says
>Thank you very much for your purchase MSTECH MS5308, I
> am very sorry to let you know the manufacturer found a bug in power adapter
> for MS5308, so please do NOT use power adapter for MS5308 LCR meter, it may
> burn your meter, once we have further solution from manufacturer, we will
> let you know and we sincerely apologize for the inconvenience for you,
> please feel free to contact us at support AT aidetek.com if you have any
> further concern regarding this, thank you very much for your >cooperation.
great ;(
glad I didn't even try to use the a/c adapter.
I wonder how many units were broken due to the 'bad' power adapter.
anyway, just be aware of this if you buy this unit.
The issue isn't that units are dying (one did that I have seen so far but not sure if its exactly related to the power adapter). The issue is that when using the power adapter there was ridiculous amounts of noise being injected into the readings.
Not very long, the first reports of it that I have seen are in late november of last year. Mind you this is when its first discovered, not when Mastech first becomse aware of it. That likely comes later as people start confirming the issue and then it comes to mastech's notice. So the bug is a relatively new discovery.
Yikes!
I very happy with the purchase of the VC6243+
Cost the same as ONE 2.OmH 14g Erse coil.
If you want to know the ACTUAL inductance of a device then the VC6243+ is not going to cut it. The VC6243+ class of device is going to give you a rough ballpark value for the inductance at a single frequency, ~200hz, but nothing more than that. It is more or less the LCR equivalent to the $5 Harbor Freight DMM. That being said, if all you need is a ballpark measurement (or a relative measurement to other inductors) then this meter is for you. If you need real values then you need to spend more. If this meter class is all you need then there is nothing wrong with that, get one of these. I am a big proponent of paying for what you need, not necessarily getting the most popular device. For example, I very happily own a UT61E DMM. I know my needs and I know its features and drawbacks. The UT61E works perfectly for me. It does everything I need it to and I keep aware of the drawbacks when using it. It's a great meter in that it meets all of its abitious specs (and exceeds them actually) at a great price but it isn't a Fluke 87-V, 289, etc. I knew this going in and those meters are overkill for me in general anyways so I didn't bother spending the premium to get one.
I apologize if it sounds like I'm crapping on your device because I'm not. I'm just stating the facts. Additionally, there is one more thing I feel I would be remiss if I didn't address. I wouldn't trust ANYTHING from Victor (note the starting VC in the model number). There are a lot of budget meter makers out there and Victor is one of the worst of the worst. Its recognized as being a crap maker even by its own people (chinese buyers). Chinese hobbyists, who because of limited funds are relegated to off-brands won't trust Victor. They tend to way overstate their specs (most other makers at least meet their specs), have bad input protection even by chinese standards and shoddy workmanship. While other low budget manufacturers are hit or miss (for example Uni-T hand held meters: good to great in general with some exceptions, benchtop meters: freaking rubbish), victor tends to be universally bad.
Some users have reported good results using an aftermarket power supply.
That bad aye, sounds like the equipment I've picked up at M*M, everything I ever bought there has gone bad. E.g a Unbal converter, 2 channel that somehow went 1 channel (so weird it was funny).
The little Victor work fine yesterday, can downsize coils quickly, I was surprised that a 1/2 of turn of wire would change value (how good do you have to be?).
The Victor was only $36 with free ship, it did work better than I thought it would.
Harbor Freight has something for $5.00 I may look for that.
Thanks PedroD
The little Victor work fine yesterday, can downsize coils quickly, I was surprised that a 1/2 of turn of wire would change value (how good do you have to be?).
The Victor was only $36 with free ship, it did work better than I thought it would.
Harbor Freight has something for $5.00 I may look for that.
Thanks PedroD
Yes there is.There is no such thing as 1/2 turn
Very much used in UHF transmitters or receivers.
Sometimes referred to as "U" turn or "U" coil, for obvious reasons.
Just cut and pasted from UHF schematics and datasheets:
or
Its worth spending a bit of money on an inductance meter as low cost ones can be inaccurate.
I worked on a SMPS design with a transformer where the leakage inductance was required to be a set value 120uH. My LC meter said it was 10uH and a USB LC meter said it was 60uH.
When I measured the resonant frequency with a capacitor, sig gen and a scope to get the inductance I found it was 128uH.
It depends how accurate you want to be.
I worked on a SMPS design with a transformer where the leakage inductance was required to be a set value 120uH. My LC meter said it was 10uH and a USB LC meter said it was 60uH.
When I measured the resonant frequency with a capacitor, sig gen and a scope to get the inductance I found it was 128uH.
It depends how accurate you want to be.
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