Quick Review: Multicomp Pro Handheld LCR Meter

RE: Quick Review: Multicomp Pro Handheld LCR Meter

fmilburn — Tue, 11 May 2021 02:37:11 GMT

I've been trying to use SCPI with the LCR meter and am having problems getting reasonable results when stepping through frequency under the control of pyvisa. Slowing down and pausing between the readings doesn't seem to help. I'll try documenting the issue better and see if I can resolve it but in the meantime wanted anyone interested in the meter and reading the post to know of the potential problem.

RE: Quick Review: Multicomp Pro Handheld LCR Meter

DAB — Wed, 20 Jan 2021 19:39:34 GMT

Nice review.

DAB

RE: Quick Review: Multicomp Pro Handheld LCR Meter

genebren — Wed, 20 Jan 2021 17:52:25 GMT

Great review! I have recently purchased the Multicomp PRO DMM (MP730027) and I have been very impressed and happy with this instrument. I guess that I should follow suit and post a review of this instrument.

RE: Quick Review: Multicomp Pro Handheld LCR Meter

shabaz — Wed, 20 Jan 2021 17:37:10 GMT

Hi Frank,

Very nice review, and this price for an instrument that covers these frequencies is really good I think! It's definitely a world apart from the low-cost LCR test tools that cannot control the frequency.

Also it's great to see the detailed display and it looks very usable with the range of buttons.

Incidentally, there's another method that might suit your needs for the kelvin measurements. If you had a PCB designed that would fit into the slots, then you could have solder points where you can temporarily solder the device-under-test (and then desolder it and use it). The benefit of that over the clamps/clips etc is that nothing moves, so measurements will be as steady (and hopefully as accurate) as possible. Then you could have another PCB with no component, just a short soldered across, and that becomes your short calibrator. You'd also use another PCB for the open calibration. You could even get the contacts gold plated, perhaps that's guilding the lily though : )

Anyway, it's an option that I think is worth it with LCR measurements.

I do a similar thing with a vector network analyzer (VNA). This was the PCB I used (It says Texas Instruments on it because I copied chunks of it from their design), and in this case I have to use connectors since the VNA does not have slots. But you can see the idea. In the photo below the component under test is the tantalum capacitor, soldered to the DUT section of the board.

If you had (say) five boards made up, then two could be dedicated for short and open purposes, and the other three could be used for testing up to three devices without needing to solder/desolder the components so frequently when making comparisons. Or some boards could be soldered with reference components so that you can always double-check that your meter is correctly set up maybe. Your design would also need kelvin traces, in the VNA case this is not possible so I've only got two wires going up to the point where the component or short etc is soldered.

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RE: Quick Review: Multicomp Pro Handheld LCR Meter

Andrew J — Wed, 20 Jan 2021 10:50:28 GMT

Nice review Frank, it looks like a good meter for a low price.

I checked out the manual to try and understand more about how the 5-/3-terminal test ports work but it’s not very clear at all. Any chance you could explain a little how you would use these ports to do tests? I guess I’m not clear on how one socket can have two simultaneous purposes.