Doubt About Using ESR Meter
If you have been using the normal analog and digital capacitance meter to check electrolytic capacitor, then suddenly switch to ESR meter, i’m sure you may have doubt about the accuracy of the meter to find bad caps. I had been in that situation before whether is it accurate in checking e-caps using ESR meter. I could assure you that when you have use ESR meter for sometimes and without it you may not want to do the repair work. Why? because you have been so used to it to find bad caps using ESR meter-it is fast and save your troubleshooting time.
That means you will not again use the conventional method to test e-caps which is not only inaccurate and also a waste of time soldering out the e-caps and test it with analog or digital capacitance meter. In order to make yourself have confident in testing e-cap with ESR meter, i suggest that you take out all the bad caps that you had compiled in your workshop (for disposal purposes) and analyze the result. Compare the result when you test the bad cap with analog/digital capacitance meter/ESR meter.
Now as we all know that there are no 100% perfect test equipment in the market. If you suspect that a particular section have problem say horizontal section and you could not find any bad components, the best way is to direct replace the components in the section. Who knows there might be a component that breakdown when under full load and that component can be an E-cap or any other components.
By the way if you own any ESR meter and you need a chart for reference to see if the cap is good, bad or marginal then i suggest that you print out this chart from this LINK.
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Andi Sapli
May 21, 2009 at 6:48 am
It's true what Jestine Yong said, when you get use in using ESR meter you will in blind corner when you dont have one. In my case I repair a T14" Toshiba CRT Television with a horizontal line at upper top of the screen.There's two ecaps with 2.2uf 50V value and its good when check with normal capacitance meter and have to desolder from the board. But when check with ESR meter it shows high esr , replace this 2 ecaps solve the problem.For those without one better order one from Jesting.
Thanks
ndsap
admin
May 21, 2009 at 8:42 am
Thanks Andi!
Jestine
john preher
May 21, 2009 at 12:49 pm
I love my ESR meter it is one of my most used tools!!I can't imagine trying to repair TVs with out it....
admin
May 21, 2009 at 10:07 pm
Hi John,
Without one seems like no confident in finding out bad caps!
Jestine