Archive of the former Yahoo!Groups mailing list: Homebrew PCBs

I bought the Australian designed kit for the "Dick Smith ESR meter"
locally from a distributer close to me for $80 Canadian.
The meter measures low ohms from .01 to 99 on a two digit display using
AC (actually it's pulses) instead of DC. It will measure capacitors in
circuit or out but they must be discharged first.
I've found that my standard (used) electrolytic caps are usually good
but some of the (used) Tantalums were highly variable and in one small
batch, three of them got thrown out. The meter measures caps from 1 uF
up to 10,000 uF. It doesn't measure accurately below 1uF. Caps below
1uF aren't usually electrolytics in any case.
The meter will also measure resistors from .01 to 99 ohms. My regular
ohmmeter doesn't do well below an ohm. As for the power supply, they
supply two battery holders for 6 triple A's. I went with a plug in AC
brick that supplies the 9 VDC. It's a switcher type that I found in a
thrift store for 25 cents.
The kit has been well thought out and is easy to assemble but I had to
measure the resistors first before installation because their color
codes on a blue background are hard to read. After assembly, there was
no need to calibrate as the readings were accurate as is.
Terry M