LC Meter - DIY - complete plans

[rivetcity]

Just wanted to share this.
If anyone's interested in building his own LC Meter you check this one here:

https://hackaday.io/project/178081-build-an-lc-meter


The full documentation is also present on Github:

https://github.com/coreWeaver/LC-Meter


There's also a complete Youtube series on the build:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhJiE4gL5T4


Could be helpful in a lot of situations.

[eccerr0r]

Re: LC Meter - DIY - complete plans

I suppose this should do better than AVRtransistortester for microhenry inductors but can't really discern much of ESR, can it?
Interesting this uses relays and a built-in reference/calibration capacitor in the design instead of depending on crystal calibration...

[rivetcity]

Re: LC Meter - DIY - complete plans

I suppose this should do better than AVRtransistortester for microhenry inductors

I don't know the device you're speaking of but this one is pretty accurate in on the full measurable scale.
It doesn't measure ESR but it could be easily modified. It's open source both hardware and software and the parts are easy to find and inexpensive. Could be a fun project to build with a younger brother or a beginner, all the parts are THT which makes it real easy to solder.

As you mentioned it makes use of a precision capacitor in the calibration routine.

[eccerr0r]

Re: LC Meter - DIY - complete plans

Well, the problem being that larger capacitors look like it won't work on this as the measurement inductor would lose too much energy and depend on the DUT capacitor to not leak charge away. Plus I'm not sure how it could measure ESR (and by the same token, leakage) without some significant changes to the architecture.

Not trying to sink the boat but just comparing it to AVRtransistortester which have a lot of similarities - both use similar cost of hardware if you go for the THT version - but it can also measure ESR. However it bites the big one on small inductors just like how this would fail on large capacitors.

I'm surprised AVRtransistortester does okay with capacitors in the picofarad region though at low resolution. This device should do okay with pF capacitors, but both tools probably afflicted by noise...

[Per Hansson]

Re: LC Meter - DIY - complete plans

The AVR transistor tester can use a LC meter hardware addon option if you use the M-firmware.
Read from here and the following page:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testge...80/#msg3351980

[eccerr0r]

Re: LC Meter - DIY - complete plans

But that increases BOM costs
Just comparing the two as-is, advantages of one or the other...