DE-5000 Tips and Tricks for Capacitance and ESR

[Bryan]

All:

Ordered a DE-5000 on a impulse buy. Seems like a nice piece of equipment, but would appreciate some tips to use the meter to measure capacitance and ESR. From my readings in the forums capacitance values (electrolytic's) should be tested at 120hz, but what about the ESR, what is the recommended frequency to measure at. I have tried 100khz on some electrolytic and the meter appears not to work with higher capacitance values.

Anyone have any tips and tricks for using the meter for measuring capacitance and ESR.

Cheers

[rsjsouza]

In general the dielectric material will greatly influence the maximum operation frequency of a capacitor, thus explaining why your aluminium capacitor was not able to react to a frequency of 100kHz, as it takes too long to charge and discharge. If you put a ceramic or a polyester film capacitor there, you will get a value that makes more sense.

Also, keep in mind the manufacturers specify a more accurate parameter: the dielectric loss, dissipation factor, or simply "D". ESR is something that varies greatly with the boundary conditions and therefore it may not be a reliable indicator of a capacitor's quality/reamining life. That and the fact you can always compare the D value with what is specified a typical datasheet for a brand-new device.

There's a lot more to this subject and the excellent thread below has a nice explanation from free_electron about a lot of capacitance effects and measurements.

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/beginners/esr-meter/msg108683/#msg108683

[ManateeMafia]

IET Labs has a collection of app notes for more in-depth info on the topic of LCR theory and practical usage. The LCR primer is pretty good at detailing the math behind the calculations and measurement techniques.

The rest are mostly geared toward the Digibridge product line.

http://www.ietlabs.com/notes/Digibridge

[edavid]

Ordered a DE-5000 on a impulse buy. Seems like a nice piece of equipment, but would appreciate some tips to use the meter to measure capacitance and ESR. From my readings in the forums capacitance values (electrolytic's) should be tested at 120hz, but what about the ESR, what is the recommended frequency to measure at. I have tried 100khz on some electrolytic and the meter appears not to work with higher capacitance values.

If you are measuring a cap to use in a circuit, you should measure it at the frequency where it will be used.

If you are comparing it to a datasheet, you should use the frequency specified in the datasheet.

[The Electrician]

I have tried 100khz on some electrolytic and the meter appears not to work with higher capacitance values.

Anyone have any tips and tricks for using the meter for measuring capacitance and ESR.

Cheers

To measure the ESR of large(ish) electrolytics at 100 kHz, set the meter to measure Rs, rather can capacitance.  Rs is ESR, and the DE-5000 will have no problem measuring Rs at 100 kHz.

Large capacitance electrolytics may be above their self resonance at 100 kHz, and may measure as having negative capacitance.

Have a look at this thread:

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/projects/capacitor-measurements-on-an-impedance-analyzer/msg178362/#msg178362

[Bryan]

To measure the ESR of large(ish) electrolytics at 100 kHz, set the meter to measure Rs, rather can capacitance.  Rs is ESR, and the DE-5000 will have no problem measuring Rs at 100 kHz.

Thanks for that, did not even realize the DE-5000 had that mode as a option, but indeed it is there. Seems more practical to use that mode as opposed to the ESR mode (Appears to have more resolution on the display)

[Bryan]

Also worth mentioning, the specification sheet shows the accuracy at various frequency ranges.