RE: Inexpensive LCR-Multimeter

["Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>]

Original poster: "Lau, Gary by way of Terry Fritz <teslalist-at-qwest-dot-net>" <Gary.Lau-at-hp-dot-com>

Which things are useless, LCR multimeters?  I can't speak for the $60 unit 
offered by Ocean State Electronics, but the experience of myself and other 
on this List with the Wavetek 27XT has been that it's very accurate for 
both primary and secondary inductance measurements, as well as capacitance, 
and frequency.

Why is it necessary to measure inductance at different frequencies?  My 
characterizations of different primary coils with a _very_ expensive HP4194 
impedance/gain-phase analyzer showed negligible variation of inductance 
with frequency.

40 years ago, who would have believed that restaurants would give away 
digital wristwatches with a hamburger?  Technology advances and what used 
to be costly becomes cheap.

Gary Lau
MA, USA


Original poster: "Mccauley, Daniel H by way of Terry Fritz 
<teslalist-at-qwest-dot-net>" <daniel.h.mccauley-at-lmco-dot-com>

In my experience, these things are basically useless for inductance
measurements.

You should really try to get a dedicated LCR meter which can measure
inductances at a variety of
different frequencies.  There is a place that sells very high quality LCR
meter kits for about $50.00
High quality in that the readings are extremely accurate.

I'll try to dig up that source.

Remember the old addage.  You get what you pay for.  Multimeters that have
every single function known to man
especially for those prices are usually garbage.

Dan