$20 LCR ESR Transistor checker project

[amtpdb]

In the U.S. some people say to not buy from Asia but to buy Made in the USA. If you take a look at a majority of things marked made in the USA you will see it was made in Asia and or Mexico and just remarked made in the us and the local company is making a huge profit. I buy a lot of my remote control equipment direct from China as I don't have the money to give to large local company's for their CEO's to have large home's. I can buy the same item in the US for around 4 times what is costs me shipped from China or buy 4 time the equipment and enjoy it for the same cost. Either way, no one in the usa gets a job from it.

[dannyf]

while the local producers are complaining about lack of income/customers.

They can always provider a better product / service at a lower price to win back customers.

I mean, that's competition. No amount of proping up does anyone any favor over the long term.

[nessatse]

Here is my take on the tester that fits into the 'standard' 50mmx50mm form factor. I'll be sending the pcb for fab this week hopefully, which means another 4-6 weeks before I get to put it all together.

[madires]

So really, we should make a pcb and declare it "official" (with the original designer's permission of course) and stop supporting the Chinese. Plus, it would be a good exercise in building something and you get to learn stuff on the way. Maybe a group buy for PCBs? Double sided.

You don't have to reinvent the wheel In the project's thread at the microcontroller.net forum you'll find several PCB layouts, and some people are organizing group buys from time to time. But I haven't seen any PCB with all the hardware options included yet.

[firewalker]

free_electron was going to design a pvb.

Alexander.

[torr032]

I am from Europe and I would rather buy something from China then from the USA because U.S terrorize the whole world with their military army by attacking other countries.

[retrolefty]

I am from Europe and I would rather buy something from China then from the USA because U.S terrorize the whole world with their military army by attacking other countries.

 Well I've always said that people should always vote with their wallets.

[bob808]

I am from Europe and I would rather buy something from China then from the USA because U.S terrorize the whole world with their military army by attacking other countries.

Why wouldn't you buy it from Europe instead?

On topic:
I worked a bit to make a through hole pcb for this project, by adding a relay for protection from charged capacitors, and a dc-dc converter for Zener measurement. I saw some designs that had that but I don't like to solder smd, at least not yet. And I want to socket the 328. I might be building on a board that was made available by a user on this thread but I don't know if I can keep it single sided. If not than I'll scrap it and make it double layer.

Offtopic:
I said it before and I'll say it again:
Economic health is maintained by each and one of us. The flow of our personal cash (yes, even the 20$ for a LCR meter) dictates the future of our country's/region's economy.
You complain that something made in the US/EU costs 2-3 times what it costs in Asia, but you don't think that the money that you give for that product comes back to you one way or another. It stays in your market. It doesn't leave the country. You buy a LCR meter from someone, he buys something else from your company etc.
 You want to buy something cheap from Asia, yet you demand a larger salary from your company. Basically you're a sink hole
Yes, it's tempting to buy something cheap from somewhere else but I guess that the main problem is financial education.

[torr032]

Sure, I would certainly rather buy something from Germany then from China if it is the same price. But that is hard to find, almost every product that you can not find in your local stores, it is hard to beat the chinese with the product price + shipping costs. I heard that more than half of the world production of everything is coming from China, so why to buy something from the resellers at the higher price if time is not an issue and you can wait for the postman.
Also they are growing in the product quality and are able to manufacture good quality devices on their own.

[bob808]

Yes, but by that standard, you are basically lowering the quality of life of your own country on the long run. I mean, basically you are asking your own country's sellers of the same items to work for the same money that the people that are selling the items from Asia are working for. I mean, indirectly you are condemning yourself in the future to the same grim quality of life that Asian people working in obscure factories are having. That's simple logic. You can't have items that cheap and still get payed a good amount of money every month.
Think on the long run, after Asia get a huge load of money from the rest of the developed parts of the world, and let's assume that that money gets distributed among the Asian people, they will no longer want to work for the amount that they are working for. They will have your money and they won't need to work for less. So this way you are increasing their quality of life and at the same time you are lowering yours.
Please, don't replay again with "but it's cheaper"

Of course this applies for stuff that you can get locally. If there's something that you need and you can only find it there...well, that's their gain, and is good for them.

[torr032]

Production is what matter. Now you can buy everything except food on the internet, so the trade business is not profitable as it was before.

China is fine for me, they don't use money for bombarding other countries or to create crisis in the world. People work hard so they could escape from poverty, buying chinese goods for me is some sort of a patriotism, hey lets spread the world wealth more evenly in the world. While some ppl on the world are dying from hunger it is not fair that some countries especially western ones are that rich.
I am also buying on the internet since I know how to do that. Buying chinese goods in local shops is for ppl that don't know how to buy on net or when time matter.

[madires]

I worked a bit to make a through hole pcb for this project, by adding a relay for protection from charged capacitors, and a dc-dc converter for Zener measurement. I saw some designs that had that but I don't like to solder smd, at least not yet. And I want to socket the 328. I might be building on a board that was made available by a user on this thread but I don't know if I can keep it single sided. If not than I'll scrap it and make it double layer.

The latest add-ons are an input stage for frequency counting and a mechanical encoder (left/right/push button) for the UI. We'll keep you busy

[all_repair]

  If I were mainland Chinese, I would not mind and shall be very happy if you spend your time doing the $20 tester, which shall cost you maybe $50-$200, and maybe another $1000s of opportunity cost.  In no time, we can delegate the $20 tester away to you and focus on the much higher value stuff, and take more holidays without working so hard.   Maybe you can do a higher value kits or complete tester with all the latest?  This shall be more constructive.  If the price is reasonable, I shall buy and I don't think the mainlan Chinese mind buying from you as they do not mind buying expensive quality European, Japanese or American products, of course provided you want to sell to them.

[bob808]

I worked a bit to make a through hole pcb for this project, by adding a relay for protection from charged capacitors, and a dc-dc converter for Zener measurement. I saw some designs that had that but I don't like to solder smd, at least not yet. And I want to socket the 328. I might be building on a board that was made available by a user on this thread but I don't know if I can keep it single sided. If not than I'll scrap it and make it double layer.

The latest add-ons are an input stage for frequency counting and a mechanical encoder (left/right/push button) for the UI. We'll keep you busy

Sure! Any documentation on the input stage? Need to sort through the Eagle library for that encoder but I can find some space on board.

[madires]

Sure! Any documentation on the input stage? Need to sort through the Eagle library for that encoder but I can find some space on board.

Please download http://www.mikrocontroller.net/svnbrowser/transistortester/Doku/trunk/pdftex/english/ and see ttester.pdf.

[bob808]

Production is what matter. Now you can buy everything except food on the internet, so the trade business is not profitable as it was before.

China is fine for me, they don't use money for bombarding other countries or to create crisis in the world. People work hard so they could escape from poverty, buying chinese goods for me is some sort of a patriotism, hey lets spread the world wealth more evenly in the world. While some ppl on the world are dying from hunger it is not fair that some countries especially western ones are that rich.
I am also buying on the internet since I know how to do that. Buying chinese goods in local shops is for ppl that don't know how to buy on net or when time matter.

Sadly, most of the money that go to China is centralized into few groups that have government connections. Chinese people see little money from what you are sending in.
Then about the wealth of the country, it depends on the decisions made by the local powers.
So basically you are making a select group of people more wealthy, while the poor struggle. And guess where that money ends up being used? Military power!
Although I agree on helping people that need help, I'm firstly thinking of my own people

[bob808]

Sure! Any documentation on the input stage? Need to sort through the Eagle library for that encoder but I can find some space on board.

Please download http://www.mikrocontroller.net/svnbrowser/transistortester/Doku/trunk/pdftex/english/ and see ttester.pdf.

I looked at it and will have a go tonight. Thank you

[dannyf]

Sadly, most of the money that go to China is centralized...

Time for a reality check.

[senz_90]

thank you madires, and Mark Heinz for this cool tester, I am still waiting my lcd come, and I am really new to this programming stuff. I hope I could make this, or maybe I would try basic program first to get familiar with this microcontroller things. once again thank you for you all make this cool stuff.

sorry for late reply. hahaha...

[hdlg_zhangyu]

I am new here and also a newbie for electronics. I got mine today from ebay. It is with Atmel Mega328p AU chip, it impressed me with all SMD components and even with a Tantalum capacitor!
However, they failed to acknowledge Karl-Heinz K"ubbeler, madires and everyone else who contributed to the firmware design.

The seller claimed it is 2014 "latest" version. However when started the program, it showed:
"Transistor Tester V2.1". Wondering what exactly firmware it is running.

ALso, I am planning to upgrade the firmware anyway to the newest version using the ISP port, I am actually wondering what version of LCD should I use? Thanks!

Thanks Madires and Mark Heinz for this amazing tool!
My 4 year old computer suffered from occasionally blue screen and I just used this meter and found several caps near the memory slots have way higher ESR than normal. I changed these bugs and now my computer is running strong again.
I guess my unit from Ebay is still running an old firmware. I am waiting for my ISP programmer to update it and I really expect to test the new on-circuit ESR function.

[bob808]

Sure! Any documentation on the input stage? Need to sort through the Eagle library for that encoder but I can find some space on board.

Please download http://www.mikrocontroller.net/svnbrowser/transistortester/Doku/trunk/pdftex/english/ and see ttester.pdf.

Should I use this package for the rotary encoder? ALPS_EC12E_SW You can find it in the Eagle library.

[madires]

thank you madires, and Mark Heinz for this cool tester, I am still waiting my lcd come, and I am really new to this programming stuff. I hope I could make this, or maybe I would try basic program first to get familiar with this microcontroller things. once again thank you for you all make this cool stuff.

You're welcome! The ATmega is a nice microcontroller for starters. My first one was the venerable 68HC11 and I still got the development board. BTW, his name is Karl-Heinz.

[madires]

Should I use this package for the rotary encoder? ALPS_EC12E_SW You can find it in the Eagle library.

That one is fine (got some EC11 or 12 in my drawer ).

[radioFlash]

I made my version of the project based on the ttester_eng110k.pdf schematic. It implements the 2.5 voltage reference, external crystal, TVS diode and relay protection of the inputs, but not the zener measurement. I'm able to get it to work with the 1.10k firmware with the relay removed. However, with the 1.12m version of the firmware, I either get no component found or some very large capacitance when no capacitor is attached. I'm assuming I haven't built the firmware correctly--any hints on what I need to adjust in the config.h or makefile? (Attached are the makefile and config.h I'm using when trying to build the 1.12m firware.)

[Hydrawerk]

A nice work.