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Issue #214 May 2008
Where Analog And Digital Collide
An Easy-To-Use LCR Meter
Third Place Microchip 2007 Design Contest
by Miguel Rusch
Start | LCR Meter | Back to Basics | The Big Picture | Creating a Wave | Analog Stages | Signal Conditioning | User Interface | Firmware | Take a Measurement | System Performance | Further Development | What's Next? | Sources & PDF
LCR METER
Why an LCR meter? Over the last decade, digital multimeters have become commodity items, constantly dropping in price to almost implausible lows. However, there is little available for the hobbyist to characterize component performance in the frequency domain. For the most part, LCR meters have remained on the benches of research and development laboratories. Sure, some multimeters include a capacitance measurement function, but they use methods that idealize the component, leading to very poor accuracies.
There were two uses for an LCR meter that motivated me to add it to my wish list. First, I like to work with SMD components; however, even when using relatively large 8050 package components, there are no markings on chip capacitors, making identification impossible. Second, switching power supplies are now used extensively. Measuring inductor characteristics such as the quality factor (Q) is critical to ensuring efficient voltage conversion. I am sure that in addition to my initial needs, you will have many other uses for this tool.
When I started the project, I wanted the LCR meter to be small, portable, and battery-powered, much like a multimeter. I wanted to be able to test across a number of common frequencies (100 Hz, 1 kHz, and 10 kHz) with a 1% basic accuracy. Finally, I wanted a clear and modern interface to display the measurements to the user.
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