Which Inductance Meter would you buy?

[chasw98]

I am looking to invest in a meter to measure inductors. The most common unit out there is an all in one digital multimeter. Then you have the chinese LCR meter. And so on until you hit the Boonton and HP meters above $500 used. What brand, model, and price would you buy or have you bought? Thanks.

Chuck

[ThomasW]

Watch ebay for a Sencor Z-meter...one recently sold for $160.

[chasw98]

Just did a quick search and found one up the street (~30 miles) for $295.00. Do you own one Thomas?

[ThomasW]

Do you own one Thomas?

Yep..... :B

[chasw98]

Check this one out.

http://www.hmcelectronics.com/cgi-bin/scripts/product/3164-0057/

$180.00

[ThomasW]

I have no idea, I've never heard of that company....

[chasw98]

I haven't either, but it seems to be a cut above the other run of the mill LCR meters all over the place. Dual 4 1/2 digit display, selectable frequency, autoranging, decent tolerances, relative, go no go capability. Just thought I'd ask.

[Ray Collins]

Chasw98,
did you purchase an LCR meter and if so which one?

Ray

[JonP]

I'm a lucky guy, we have a few of these at work:

Hioki LCR meter

Have some pics of measuring and unwinding the 2.7mH Perfect Lay to a perfect, matched 2.6mH... probably more anal than needed especially to 3 decimal places, but I COULD!! :B Guess they're not in my 'Bucket.

Unfortunately, there seems to be only one on Ebay, and it's a new one, at the going rate for a new one: $2995.99 Thought they were cheaper than that! I had hopes for the used market...

This also seems to be Hioki's low end LCR meter... :E

Side note for us monetary mortals, and a bit of money savings if you don't mind a DIY kit:

AADE Products

This guy offers a built or kit LCR meter with very good specs, $99 for the kit.
Only catch, for us audio types, is that it's oriented towards RF parts, so it's range tops out at 1.5uF for caps (lower than most) and 150mH in inductors (actually larger than most) Very good resolution of 1nH and .01pF, 1% accuracy. 20kHz measuring might preclude some iron core inductors.

Wonder how practical/easy it would be to change the test frequency, and the code, to do a 1 or 10 khz test freq, and scale it to larger part values?

He also has a free filter design software, don't know if it will do audio frequency numbers, or limited to RF only... Will check it out.

[chasw98]

Chasw98,
did you purchase an LCR meter and if so which one?

Ray

Sorry I am so late on this one. I ended up finding a reasonably good digital no name LCR meter for about $60.00. Seems to be pretty accurate and it has worked well for the work I do with it. I just checked the flea bay market and you can get a reasonably decent digital model for $50.00.

[CFC]

Sorry I am so late on this one. I ended up finding a reasonably good digital no name LCR meter for about $60.00. Seems to be pretty accurate and it has worked well for the work I do with it. I just checked the flea bay market and you can get a reasonably decent digital model for $50.00.

Where did you get yours from? What brand/model? If you don't mind sharing :B

CFC

[servicetech]

Sencore is built well but WAY overpriced. They are typically sold by high commission sales people to electronics shops. I've used the LC53 many times, it's an excellent piece of equipment.

Tenma makes good products (we use them at the shop) although I've never bought their LCR meter. Tenma LCR $53

[Ray Collins]

servicetech,
Thanks for the suggestion but the Tenna's inductance scale begins at 2.0mH and goes up and the resistance scale begins at 200 Ohms and goes up, neither of which covers the needed ranges.

Ray

[Dennis H]

2 mH with a resolution of .001 mH is fine for speakers. 200 ohms with a resolution of .1 ohm is a bit high if you want to measure the DCR of coils. Here's one with the same 2 mH but the ohms scales start at 20 with a resolution of .01.

http://cgi.ebay.com/3-1-2-bridge-LCR-Meter-2000uF-200Mohm-20H-Full-pro-4070_W0QQitemZ380000541865QQihZ025QQcategoryZ66991QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem#ebayphotohosting

[servicetech]

The resolution for resistance is 0.1 ohm, which is close enough for me. How the meter leads are pushed on the components will make more than a 0.1 ohm difference.
Inductance resolution is 0.001mh, one turn of wire can make that much difference.

Going by resolution spec I think it's close enough for crossover work.

[Ray Collins]

Thanks fellows...I think the problem resides with my lack of understanding of the ranges. From your explanations it appears that the maximum value for each range is the index....I was interpreting it as the beginning point for measurement ,i.e., the inductor range starts at 2mH and goes up from there... apparently not the case...it starts at 0(zero) and goes up to 2mH. The next range starts at zero and goes up higher but the resolution is coarser...is this correct?

Ray

[JonW]

For whatever it's worth...
I bought this one, upon recommendations from people here on the board:

http://www.cs-sales.net/lcm1950.html

I've only used it for resistance (mostly) and a little capacitance so far (no inductance). For resistance it has an annoying beep when contact is made. But I understand why it's there- so you can tell when it's conducting, without having to look at the meter. So far it's been a perfectly adequate meter for my needs.

[Bent]

same as mine.

[servicetech]

Thanks fellows...I think the problem resides with my lack of understanding of the ranges. From your explanations it appears that the maximum value for each range is the index....I was interpreting it as the beginning point for measurement ,i.e., the inductor range starts at 2mH and goes up from there... apparently not the case...it starts at 0(zero) and goes up to 2mH. The next range starts at zero and goes up higher but the resolution is coarser...is this correct?

Ray

You got it :T

[Ray Collins]

Thanks Fellows!!

Ray

[JonP]

Tenma makes good products (we use them at the shop) although I've never bought their LCR meter. Tenma LCR $53

Just got an MCM catalog the other day, and they had a higher end Tenma for about $290. Quite a few steps up. 4 1/2 digit, .3-.6% accuracy, 4 test frequencies, dissipation factor, Q, etc... Sorta like the Hioki, only 10 times cheaper...

Of course, that's only 10 times cheaper... If I came into some money, I'd get something like that. If not, one of the $30-60 ones would do the job for speakerbuilding...