ANATEK Blue ESR Meter REV 1 PCB first build. Tips and component upgrade suggestions..

[helion]

Re: ANATEK Blue ESR Meter REV 1 PCB first build. Tips and component upgrade suggestio

I've finally bought my first ESR meter kit. Wish me luck.

Parts


Front


Back reads "Bob... Dec '07" lol


Please note PCB images are for my reference.

Good idea. There are better components available now, than when I designed the original meter. I'll need to put some serious thought into what would be the simplest & cheapest way to measure single milli-ohms, and how to display them. Thanks for giving me some possibilities to contemplate.

Sorry to be a disappointment, but it's not as easy as it sounds. If you multiply its sensitivity by 10, you multiply all the problems by 10 as well. Problems like varying readings caused by lead inductance, contact resistance and noise pickup. It also becomes even harder to protect such a sensitive device from 100uF capacitors charged to 330V as happens so often.

To measure down to single milliohms would require a 4-wire measurement at the very least. I'm hoping that when I've finally moved to another house 400km away and get set up again properly, I'll be able to develop something. Maybe a simpler gadget which measures from 0 to 99 milliohms (0-0.099 ohms). Above that figure, the current meter should be quite adequate.

I wonder if it is possible to integrate a lot many functions into one hand held device, since there are already small enough individual testing devices such as those as Peak.

[Bob Parker]

Re: ANATEK Blue ESR Meter REV 1 PCB first build. Tips and component upgrade suggestio

Wonder if it wouldn't be easier just to make an add-on circuit for your ESR meter that works as a kind of x10\x100 deal, changing your 0.007 ohm reading to .07 or even .7x ?

Would be useful I guess as a lot of people already have your meter and probably don't want to have to get a whole new kit.

Maybe you could even make it dual-purpose with an optional display for a standalone meter or just an output to the existing meter, selectable by a jumper on the board somewhere.

Sorry to be a disappointment, but it's not as easy as it sounds. If you multiply its sensitivity by 10, you multiply all the problems by 10 as well. Problems like varying readings caused by lead inductance, contact resistance and noise pickup. It also becomes even harder to protect such a sensitive device from 100uF capacitors charged to 330V as happens so often.


To measure down to single milliohms would require a 4-wire measurement at the very least. I'm hoping that when I've finally moved to another house 400km away and get set up again properly, I'll be able to develop something. Maybe a simpler gadget which measures from 0 to 99 milliohms (0-0.099 ohms). Above that figure, the current meter should be quite adequate.

[cmj21973]

Re: ANATEK Blue ESR Meter REV 1 PCB first build. Tips and component upgrade suggestio

My Blue ESR meter and Blue Ring tester would gladly welcome a new Blue kit for low ESR mobo caps.

[Agent24]

Re: ANATEK Blue ESR Meter REV 1 PCB first build. Tips and component upgrade suggestio

Wonder if it wouldn't be easier just to make an add-on circuit for your ESR meter that works as a kind of x10\x100 deal, changing your 0.007 ohm reading to .07 or even .7x ?

Would be useful I guess as a lot of people already have your meter and probably don't want to have to get a whole new kit.

Maybe you could even make it dual-purpose with an optional display for a standalone meter or just an output to the existing meter, selectable by a jumper on the board somewhere.

[Bob Parker]

Re: ANATEK Blue ESR Meter REV 1 PCB first build. Tips and component upgrade suggestio

Thanks! I'm 100% agreeing with you that its limited resolution at the bottom of the lowest range isn't great for checking motherboards. I just thought I should explain to others here who don't know its background, why it's like that.

I'll keep thinking about it down here where it's winter and hard to get motivated....

[PCBONEZ]

Re: ANATEK Blue ESR Meter REV 1 PCB first build. Tips and component upgrade suggestio

I'm aware of that. [Read some of your articles.]
Was not critizing the device you built.
It's usefulness far exceeds what you intended it for.
I think it may rival sliced bread... [Greatest thing since.]

I was just answering the previous question by showing examples where one more digit East of the decimal would be usefull to us low ESR folks.
.

[Bob Parker]

Re: ANATEK Blue ESR Meter REV 1 PCB first build. Tips and component upgrade suggestio

Mobo caps in the range of .009-.005 ESR are now fairly common.
A meter with only two decimal resolution might read a good one as 0.00 which indicates a shorted cap.
[Especially when you consider meter tolerance and resolution.]

Now lets say you have a cap that is supposed to be .007 ohms.
That 2 digit meter is at .01 or bouncing between .00 and .01.
Is it good or at .015 ohms which is over 2x the rating?

You aren't going to get to 4 decimal places accurately with hand-held equipment.
[I used to measure thermocouples used in NUC plant temp detectors to calibrate the instruments and they were 4+ decimal place resistance measurements. It's a PITA.]
.

To be honest, I designed what's now the Blue ESR meter for the general electronic servicing of TVs and VCRs etc I was doing at the time (1995) when nearly all the electrolytic caps causing problems were less than 1,000uF. I figured that a two digit display going down to 0.01 ohms should be adequate for checking the occasional linear power supply filter capacitor, though with very poor resolution. For that reason I'm the first to agree that it's not great for checking motherboards where you often find half a dozen low ESR caps paralleled. I'm giving this some thought in between moving houses.....

[PCBONEZ]

Re: ANATEK Blue ESR Meter REV 1 PCB first build. Tips and component upgrade suggestio

Mobo caps in the range of .009-.005 ESR are now fairly common.
A meter with only two decimal resolution might read a good one as 0.00 which indicates a shorted cap.
[Especially when you consider meter tolerance and resolution.]

Now lets say you have a cap that is supposed to be .007 ohms.
That 2 digit meter is at .01 or bouncing between .00 and .01.
Is it good or at .015 ohms which is over 2x the rating?

You aren't going to get to 4 decimal places accurately with hand-held equipment.
[I used to measure thermocouples used in NUC plant temp detectors to calibrate the instruments and they were 4+ decimal place resistance measurements. It's a PITA.]
.

[Longbow]

Re: ANATEK Blue ESR Meter REV 1 PCB first build. Tips and component upgrade suggestio

What would be the benefit of adding high resolution readings to the Blue Meter? For example, I just measured a Panasonic 47 uf cap with the Blue Meter and it displayed .22. What advantage would be gained if the meter read .2237? The best additional bucks you can spend on this excellent meter are for a nice set of needle probes.

[Bob Parker]

Re: ANATEK Blue ESR Meter REV 1 PCB first build. Tips and component upgrade suggestio

Recently I ordered a Blue ESR Meter kit and assembled it. Here's my story of assembly and testing.

I ordered directly from Anatek instead of one of the distributors. It took me about 1 week to assemble, which is a lot longer than most. The main reason it took so long is I'd come home after work, solder in about 5 components, then put it on hold until the next day (got to spend time with family not "playing" in the garage).

My kit did come with 4 extra 2.2 kohm resistors, hopefully this doesn't mean another kit was missing these 4 resistors. The only real problem I ran into was a one wrong resistor. I was missing a 220 ohm resistor and in it's place had an extra 180 ohm resistor. I both tested the extra resistor on my multimeter and used the color codes, it was clearly wrong. So I emailed Anatek and they quickly mailed me out the correct resistor.

I also had a little problem with the trim pot in VR2. The legs of the trim pot did not slide easily into the holes on the PCB. I probably could have pushed harder and forced it in, but I didn't want to break anything. So instead I used my Dremel to ever so slightly grind the sides of the legs down. After this the trim pot slid right into place.

I finished assembly and calibration last night. I've already found a bad capacitor from an LCD monitor. I'm looking forward to using this on many future projects.

Well done!

I hope it will pay you back in time it saves you.

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

Re: ANATEK Blue ESR Meter REV 1 PCB first build. Tips and component upgrade suggestio

Coming back to the high resolution meter thing - i may design and build a little something that connects to two cheapo DMMs if there's enough interest. Like Bob said, to measure milliohms accurately 4-wire measurements are a must.

Sure, it won't be as easy to read as you need to apply Ohm's law, but i don't want to use a microcontroller because i have no clue on how to program one.

[Freezer]

Re: ANATEK Blue ESR Meter REV 1 PCB first build. Tips and component upgrade suggestio

Recently I ordered a Blue ESR Meter kit and assembled it. Here's my story of assembly and testing.

I ordered directly from Anatek instead of one of the distributors. It took me about 1 week to assemble, which is a lot longer than most. The main reason it took so long is I'd come home after work, solder in about 5 components, then put it on hold until the next day (got to spend time with family not "playing" in the garage).

My kit did come with 4 extra 2.2 kohm resistors, hopefully this doesn't mean another kit was missing these 4 resistors. The only real problem I ran into was a one wrong resistor. I was missing a 220 ohm resistor and in it's place had an extra 180 ohm resistor. I both tested the extra resistor on my multimeter and used the color codes, it was clearly wrong. So I emailed Anatek and they quickly mailed me out the correct resistor.

I also had a little problem with the trim pot in VR2. The legs of the trim pot did not slide easily into the holes on the PCB. I probably could have pushed harder and forced it in, but I didn't want to break anything. So instead I used my Dremel to ever so slightly grind the sides of the legs down. After this the trim pot slid right into place.

I finished assembly and calibration last night. I've already found a bad capacitor from an LCD monitor. I'm looking forward to using this on many future projects.

[steve2]

Re: ANATEK Blue ESR Meter REV 1 PCB first build. Tips and component upgrade suggestio

These both had the bios updated at the MSI site. Really can't remember if I did that before or after the problem started. Maybe I will look for the original bios and try it.

[Agent24]

Re: ANATEK Blue ESR Meter REV 1 PCB first build. Tips and component upgrade suggestio

I just got my Blue esr kit today. Put it together in a couple hours while watching tv and it works great. I also had the 4 metal clips left over that I couldn't see any info for, so I was glad to look here and find out they are for holding 2 aa batteries. I just completely recapped a MB MS-7207 last week and saved all the old caps to test when the esr meter came. Only had one that read bad and sadly, the MB is the same as before. Boots perfect every other time. I have 2 of these emachines here doing the exact same thing. Every other boot is fine. Very strange problem, but thats a different thread.

Maybe it's some weird BIOS\incompatibility bug rather than a hardware problem.

I had weird issues after upgrading a Duron 1.3ghz to an Athlon XP 2600+... It turned out my BIOS didn't support the new CPU properly and half the time it wouldn't POST and would do the RAM failed beep code.

After upgrading BIOS to one that supported my CPU it worked perfectly.

[steve2]

Re: ANATEK Blue ESR Meter REV 1 PCB first build. Tips and component upgrade suggestio

I just got my Blue esr kit today. Put it together in a couple hours while watching tv and it works great. I also had the 4 metal clips left over that I couldn't see any info for, so I was glad to look here and find out they are for holding 2 aa batteries. I just completely recapped a MB MS-7207 last week and saved all the old caps to test when the esr meter came. Only had one that read bad and sadly, the MB is the same as before. Boots perfect every other time. I have 2 of these emachines here doing the exact same thing. Every other boot is fine. Very strange problem, but thats a different thread.

[Agent24]

Re: ANATEK Blue ESR Meter REV 1 PCB first build. Tips and component upgrade suggestio

http://people.overclockers.ru/TerAbit/record7 mentions 0.0001 Ohm, but I think that is
just accuracy.

Can't see a display either, possibly he is using the oscilloscope to provide output.

The rest of the designs don't seem any better than Bob's meter either.

[PCBONEZ]

Re: ANATEK Blue ESR Meter REV 1 PCB first build. Tips and component upgrade suggestio

I kinda hate to say it... but some of those ESR meters that you-know-who posted about claimed to measure values quite low.

Do you think any of them could actually come through with that claim?

I scarcely remember any good below 1 ohm except maybe some cheap Chinese models that I don't think would live up to the claims.

Of course if I could read Russian that might be different.
.

[Agent24]

Re: ANATEK Blue ESR Meter REV 1 PCB first build. Tips and component upgrade suggestio

I kinda hate to say it... but some of those ESR meters that you-know-who posted about claimed to measure values quite low.

Do you think any of them could actually come through with that claim?

[PCBONEZ]

Re: ANATEK Blue ESR Meter REV 1 PCB first build. Tips and component upgrade suggestio

I just found this today..
Brand new [released Aug 2010] LCR meter from BK that does ESR down to 4 decimal places.
- - - Costs $299 though.
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showthread.php?t=12509
.

[Bob Parker]

Re: ANATEK Blue ESR Meter REV 1 PCB first build. Tips and component upgrade suggestio

Any updates on the “higher resolution ESR meter”?

Hi again. Sorry but unfortunately my 'home' situation hasn't let me do anything useful with electronics for the last few years and it's likely that I won't get a chance to get back into it until some time late next year.

Conversely, measuring down to milliohm resolution runs into the problem of contact resistance between whatever your test leads terminate in, and the capacitor's leads.

Assuming that things start looking up next year, I'll try to look at all this in more detail.