I won a few auctions on ebay from a particular seller. I got 25x 578pF (yep 0.578nF) 1% Silver Mica capacitors, 50x WIMA 0.22uF 250V 10% and 25x 3.6uH inductors for <$18 shipped from the same seller.
Well I decided to push things a little harder
. In particular the silver mica 1% were what I was interested in. Particularly because they are low value high precision (relatively) caps and there was a good enough qty that I could test them all and get an acceptable precision in my measurements.
I tested all capacitors two ways: using the test leads (using the Rel function) and using the adapter (using the Rel function). I reset the relative value between each measurement (essential for the test leads, not so much for the adapter). The reported value of 578pF +/- 1% means that the measurements should fall between 0.573nF and 0.584nF.
Now for the results:
The measurement using test leads are listed first while the measurements using the adapter are in parentheses.
#1 - 0.584nF(0.582nf) #11 - 0.582nF(0.580nF) #21 - 0.581nF(0.580nF)
#2 - 0.582nF(0.581nF) #12 - 0.580nF(0.578nF) #22 - 0.581nF(0.580nF)
#3 - 0.581nF(0.581nF) #13 - 0.578nF(0.578nF) #23 - 0.584nF(0.584nF)
#4 - 0.582nF(0.580nF) #14 - 0.583nF(0.582nF) #24 - 0.585nF(0.584nF)
#5 - 0.584nF(0.584nF) #15 - 0.581nF(0.580nF) #25 - 0.579nF(0.578nF)
#6 - 0.584nF(0.582nF) #16 - 0.584nF(0.582nF)
#7 - 0.581nF(0.580nF) #17 - 0.580nF(0.580nF)
#8 - 0.579nF(0.578nF) #18 - 0.583nF(0.580nF)
#9 - 0.584nF(0.584nF) #19 - 0.584nF(0.582nF)
#10 - 0.580nF(0.580nF) #20 - 0.585nF(0.584nF)
Average Value - 0.582nF(0.58096nF)
Percent Error from Reported Value: 0.692042%(0.512111%)
The results range from 0%-1.0% of the reported value.
This is incredible, the listed accuracy for this range is +/- 3.0%+5 counts. Enough said!
A few things I learned from this. One, as the manual says the adapter is MUCH more reproducible and appears to be a bit more accurate. Using the adapter I measure the same cap 10 times through out the test and every time it returned the same value. Using the test leads it was always +/- 1 count. Second, the adapter works even though you don't plug it into the COM port. One end plugs into the cap,volt,ohm,etc. port the other actually plugs into the mAuA port.
I then tested the 50x 0.22uF WIMA 10% caps, just to see how they do.
I'm not going to bother to list out 50 values. I tested the adapter for the first 10 and there was NO difference between the adapter readings and the test lead readings. Additionally, these are high enough in capacitance that the relative function is not necessary.
Now to see how they did. The average value was 0.221553uF which is an error of only 0.706% from the reported value! Keep in mind this test range is still 3.0%+5 counts accuracy The results have a much higher variation ranging from -5.77%-5.59% of the reported value. That is still well within the +/-10% reported for the caps themselves.
This meter just continues to impress me!