Which Inductance Meter to buy?

[ODougbo]

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

[Patrick Bateman]

My favorite tool in the garage is my Dayton wt3. Besides measuring speakers, it can also measure inductors

[ODougbo]

Thanks Pat - I'll take a look at that.

[linuxworks]

see my thread (same forum) on ESR meter. it does L/C/R and while it costs a bit more, it was the one I concluded was the best value for what it does.

[CarlyBoy]

I just bought an LC meter from Apex Jr. It's a Victor VC6243. Nothing fancy. Works just fine. $50

[ODougbo]

I was just thinking about this - thanks order is placed!

[ODougbo]

CarlyBoy, That is a handy meter - thanks!

(found on ebay, they are not expensive)

[PedroDaGr8]

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

[linuxworks]

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.

[PedroDaGr8]

Originally Posted by linuxworks

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.

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.