Deep Dive into ESR, Testing

RE: Deep Dive into ESR, Testing

clem57 — Wed, 14 Aug 2019 19:25:26 GMT

Nice report. I [View:/resized-image/__size/16x16/__key/commentfiles/f7d226abd59f475c9d224a79e3f0ec07-43442c32-4147-4bba-85ac-c539f9af7993/contentimage_5F00_3708.png:16:16] the graphs. It takes time to collect all the points.

Thumbs up.

Clem

RE: Deep Dive into ESR, Testing

phoenixcomm — Mon, 27 May 2019 00:34:49 GMT

Frank Great Stuff! This was a very informative module, your explanation helped me a lot. I don't remember covering ESR back in my College EE courses, but then I am getting older and have CRS (Cant Remember ***). So I am constantly looking in a book or on-line for answers. Which is the definition of an engineer ie. If you don't know the answer, you know ware to just look it up.

RE: Deep Dive into ESR, Testing

three-phase — Sun, 26 May 2019 19:57:42 GMT

This has been very interesting to follow along with. I tried measuring capacitance values with a scope and signal generator a while back, but never really had much success with it.

It is something I will be able to revisit with more insight after reading your blogs.

Kind regards.

RE: Deep Dive into ESR, Testing

shabaz — Sun, 26 May 2019 13:13:07 GMT

Hi Frank,

Excellent report! That's an impressive amount of data collected, and very nice to see the different methods that were used to explore the ESR.

I was trying to make a jig to hold capacitors this weekend, until I broke the table-saw : ( It was a little hobby thing, and the motor is under heavy load even cutting thin material.. I mistook the smoke, thinking it was dust, but it wasn't.. ended up with a burned out motor : (

RE: Deep Dive into ESR, Testing

michaelkellett — Sun, 26 May 2019 11:22:44 GMT

Good stuff, Frank.

I got my Taiwanese DE-5000 LCR meter via Ebay today. I paid £91.75 for it and then was stung for £24 by Royal Mail for £16 "tax" (VAT I suppose) and £8 "handling",

I'll do a blog about it as soon as I can - the picture will need to do for now.

So far it looks not bad at all for the money.

I still think I need to make a decent capacitor tester, it needs to measure capacitance and ESR accurately over the range 0.1uF to 100,000uF, 5mOhms - 50ohms with DC bias from 0 - at least 40V.

The test current will need to be up to at least 500mA to get sub mOhm accuracy and the frequency range perhaps 100Hz to 1MHz. (100kHz might do which would certainly be easier).

You need the adjustable DC bias because MLCC parts can be down to a small fraction of the nominal capacitance at maximum bias voltage.

[View:/resized-image/__size/620x465/__key/commentfiles/f7d226abd59f475c9d224a79e3f0ec07-43442c32-4147-4bba-85ac-c539f9af7993/4075.contentimage_5F00_191002.jpg:620:465]

Measuring a 10uF polymer cap.

RE: Deep Dive into ESR, Testing

jw0752 — Sun, 26 May 2019 04:01:00 GMT

Hi Frank,

Thanks for the interesting report. I was fascinated by the different ways you approached the experiment. I have been using the M-Tester for rough measurements for some time and I have always been impressed with how good a job it does. Thanks for the mention on the tips.

John