Chinese clone of Bob Parker Blue ESR meter

[volkswagenvan]

Re: Chinese clone of Bob Parker Blue ESR meter

[QUOTE=Bob Parker;1111206]Hi there Volkswagenvan. In Down Under Australia, the old Volkswagen vans were called "Kombi vans" (see picture).


Kombi Van

Well I learned something new today! Cool Picture also.

[redwire]

Re: Chinese clone of Bob Parker Blue ESR meter

In North America we don't use "caravan" or "Kombi" nobody has heard of that. Instead it's a motor home, cube van, camper, RV recreational vehicle labels that we use. The cold winters here it was -25°C last night they only get used a few months in the summer. VW's have the gasoline heater but it's useless in that cold.
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I've found a few times I needed an extra digit - not when doing repair work so much, but when comparing or measuring larger electrolytic capacitors, or measuring ESR of batteries.

I thought it possible to put capacitance measurement functionality in the unit. As long as it's dual-slope (as I find digital multimeters do a terrible job of measuring electrolytic's capacitance, using a single ramp dielectric non-linearity does not get nulled out) you could scroll digits on the display and show "uF" at the end.
I thought it possible to put the Ring Tester functionality in the unit, in firmware- pluck the transformer using one output source and afterwards, count ringing pulses at the MCU input. You can even measure the ringing frequency as well if that information would help.

I remember the MCU was discontinued around 2015 and not easy to find when I'd looked then. Littelfuse purchasing Zilog/IXYS in 2017 must have changed things. But for $2 you can get killer computing power in a newer MCU.

[eccerr0r]

Re: Chinese clone of Bob Parker Blue ESR meter

heh even cheaper for 3-digit: just print out the 3 digit code for capacitance in pF (or maybe better uF since we're dealing with electrolytic capacitors and I don't think we'll lose too much with the inability to read out 0.1uF as probably the smallest electrolytic.

Should be sufficient, I don't think accuracy is all that important here for measuring capacitance.

[redwire]

Re: Chinese clone of Bob Parker Blue ESR meter

I was recapping some equipment and found putting two or more instruments on each cap was a hassle. Then, it was most of my gear would give different readings on what the capacitance and ESR, DF was.
I have two LCR meters, Blue ESR and a couple DMM's.
That's when I was fed up with the malarkey. Just to test a capacitor I need a literal election with $100's of test equipment, none of which can answer the basic question- if the part is good or not.
Example was a 6,800uF electrolytic it can be -50% at 3,400uF and still have good ESR at the bottom of the measurement range.
DMM's are pretty much useless reading electrolytics so I take their numbers lightly.

[lechugaAmir]

Re: Finally built the Bob Parker "Blue" ESR Meter

He actually sent me a pic...

Asked that can you copy pic16f627a extraction .bin and hex code?

[VoicesFYC]

I was Reading the posts in here.. and mostly i keep to myself unless i have info on a listed subject... i do NOT own a Bob Parker ESR meter but i do remember many years ago when i was a young arcade tech learning monitor repair and board repair and trying to keep 157 arcade machines running damn near 24/7 ..i remember my electronics school had posted an article that i think was from some electronics magazine that talked about that meter. and i was quite impressed because they had used the Dick Smith Article and after reading it i wanted one but every time i wanted to get one it was out of stock and then the stores started closing and i missed out at the time....it wasn't until later i found you could still buy them but by that time i had already bought an other meter... i do remember being quite impressed at the design and after Seeing Mr. Parker here and his Comments and His Kindness In general I think I Can Say Mr. Parker has Renewed My Faith As An Electronics Tech... I Think I've Just Witnessed an Electronics technician's Hero. Thank You Mr. Parker For All You've Done For All Of Us. Daniel.

[Bob Parker]

I was Reading the posts in here.. and mostly i keep to myself unless i have info on a listed subject... i do NOT own a Bob Parker ESR meter but i do remember many years ago when i was a young arcade tech learning monitor repair and board repair and trying to keep 157 arcade machines running damn near 24/7 ..i remember my electronics school had posted an article that i think was from some electronics magazine that talked about that meter. and i was quite impressed because they had used the Dick Smith Article and after reading it i wanted one but every time i wanted to get one it was out of stock and then the stores started closing and i missed out at the time....it wasn't until later i found you could still buy them but by that time i had already bought an other meter... i do remember being quite impressed at the design and after Seeing Mr. Parker here and his Comments and His Kindness In general I think I Can Say Mr. Parker has Renewed My Faith As An Electronics Tech... I Think I've Just Witnessed an Electronics technician's Hero. Thank You Mr. Parker For All You've Done For All Of Us. Daniel.

Wow. Thanks for your nice words Daniel! It's good to know that my efforts haven't all gone unnoticed. Thanks for restoring my faith that there are still a few real technicians capable of doing component-level fault finding and repair. 👍

[redwire]

I've used the AnaTek kit build of Blue ESR for a couple decades now and it's an authority for testing capacitors. Not too bad for batteries either. Thanks for that Bob!

The chinese clone using a PIC16F627A seems strange they prefer their own low cost MCU's. Unknown if the code is any good or tested or the same cap testing strategy etc.

[Bob Parker]

I've used the AnaTek kit build of Blue ESR for a couple decades now and it's an authority for testing capacitors. Not too bad for batteries either. Thanks for that Bob!

The chinese clone using a PIC16F627A seems strange they prefer their own low cost MCU's. Unknown if the code is any good or tested or the same cap testing strategy etc.

Great to know that you're still getting some use out of it. The Zilog chips are getting quite expensive and I'm surprised that they're still being made after all this time. The Chinese guy seems to be selling quite a lot of his meters and I haven't heard any complaints about them. His firmware has more functionality than my original code so he must know what he's doing. His meters have the same circuitry as mine, so the measurement technique must be the same. I'm impressed that he worked out the details and copied the whole thing. These Chinese people are very determined!

[redwire]

I see the Blue2 ESR meter is now available.
Is there some place the upgrades are discussed? The specs alone don't really mention what the new test current is "50mV or less" and range to 0.001 ohms but 2 digits has me wondering what it has over the old model.

[lechugaAmir]

Hello friend, I'm Mexico, greetings, I already bought Chinese clones Bob Parker ESR, reviewed very well, excellent, no errors. Smart charger for "9V" Li-ion batteries bms protection Includes 9V batteries now 8.50v
Research PIC16F627 PICkit3 reprogrammer is protected code 😐 you can not copy some if there is ic cracker possible?

[lechugaAmir]

I've used the AnaTek kit build of Blue ESR for a couple decades now and it's an authority for testing capacitors. Not too bad for batteries either. Thanks for that Bob!

The chinese clone using a PIC16F627A seems strange they prefer their own low cost MCU's. Unknown if the code is any good or tested or the same cap testing strategy etc.

is code protected how envious chinese🙄

[stj]

there are known weaknesses with pic chips if somebody really wanted to read one out.

[Bob Parker]

is code protected how envious chinese🙄

This guy has made a huge effort to clone the Blue ESR meter, analyse all the functions of the original microcontroller and develop code for a different device. He would be crazy to make it easy for anyone to copy it. The original Zilog chips are read protected too.

[VoicesFYC]

Mr.Parker... don't ever stop what you do...You Will ALWAYS be a technician's hero .. and your Welcome Sir