$10.74 including shipping...but is it worth it?

Did you ever have a capacitor that you wanted to measure and it was marked poorly or you had your doubts about whether it was good?   Perhaps you have an inductor that is unidentified.

Well for $10.74 you can buy a ready to go L/C meter.  It is truly hard to believe that you can get something to measure Capacitance and Inductance for under $11.

Here are some examples:

The little LC meter that could

I took 4 inductors like the one in the picture above.  I measured them as follows:

1.04 uH

0.989 uH

0.998 uH

1.07 uH

Frankly that is pretty good.

Capacitors were a little more problematic, but for the most part they measure close enough.  A big 100uF electrolytic measured dead on.  Interestingly, a silver mica measured outside the plus / minus 5%...not sure about that one.

*However, guess what?  For those unmarked air variable caps it is REALLY HELPFUL*

So for inductors, it appears absolutely brilliant.  I have a whole drawer of unidentified inductors that I can now find their values without have to take the time to set them up on the scope.  

By the way, if you do want to do an experiment in measuring capacitance using your oscilloscope, then there are several instructional videos on youtube that are quite fun.  You can take an unidentified capacitor and use your function generator to calculate the unknown capacitance.

Ok, so as far as buying an $11 inductance capacitance meter, well I think it is worth it.  Particularly for those unknown inductors and also for those capacitors that you have your doubts about.

Short blog for today, but I think I will go play with this little meter some more.

73 Mark 4x1ks