0144 - A Tale of Two Testers: One Is Better
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 30 ก.ย. 2024
- Let's have a close look at these two inexpensive component testers, the LCR-T4 B and the LCR-T7, and see which is worth the money. They have their strengths and weaknesses, but one does stand out and will be added to our beginner's tool kit.
** See the pinned comment below regarding an error I made. **
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First look at these: • 0136 - Mail Bag 17: Fi...
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I think you misplaced a decimal point a couple times here. The LCR-T4 misread the 100 ohm resistor by 1.2%, the 100k resistor by 0.7%, and the 10M resistor by about 0.7%.
Not saying the conclusion of the video is incorrect, but the LCR-T4 read all resistors from 100 ohm to 10M ohms to within 3%.
Thanks for showing the differences though!
Good catch! I need to slow down a bit.. It's too bad YT do not allow us to make corrections. We all make mistakes but it would be nice to be able to correct them when they are found.
I came here to say the same thing, the author might want to add a note or pinned comment to the video ..
@@thygate Done!
@@uni-byte No worries.. also the glare on the T7 makes it very hard for us to read the results.
I bought the T7 because I wanted a handy decoder to troubleshooting remotes and verifying the control codes from PICAXE projects. But all the T7 would do was flash an LED type spot on the display when I pressed the remote buttons, indicating that the remote was working, but I was getting no further info from the tester. So I looked around online and found a manual for the T7. I don't know if the firmware version I have is identical as far as the features indicated in the online manual. However, the manual stated that the T7 only decoded Hitachi codes. The remote I tested is a SONY, which is also what the PICAXE chips work with without bit-banging. Oh well. BTW, if anyone wants to simply verify that an IR remote is functioning they can probably do what I do and view it with their cellphone camera. Most of them don't block IR vary well, so it's easy to see in real-time. I also use that trick for playing with my IR lasers that I use for free-space laser audio communications. I use a cheap, (free,) old cellphone with video to see the laser light, since I found one that doesn't appear to block IR at all. I guess they were too cheap to bother. So it has become a handy test tool on my workbench.
I couldn't get mine to work with a Sony or a Bell (DirecTV) remote, just that RCA one so far.
I've tried a few of these component testers and I've read hundreds of reviews on all of them that I could find. The two that keep topping all the lists are the tc2 and the gm328a. There are also problems. There seems to be a fake version of the gm238 that's nowhere near as good and the tc2 is very hard to find.
That's good information! Thanks for sharing.
I am assuming you ran the mandatory calibration cycle on both of these????
I did. Interestingly the T4 had an extra stage in it's procedure that required a 100nf capacitor. I happen to have a very accurate 100nf film capacitor. I was actually wondering if that was why it was more accurate while measuring capacitance than the T7. I should have mentioned this during the test.
I have the latest one LCR-TC2 and the bottom of the ZIF is for Zener's on mine and it covers a lot of the IR protocols...cheers
I was surprised at how well the IR protocol decoding works. Yeah, found information about the Zener testing on eevblog. Cheers!
Yep ! great thing to have just to hand !@@uni-byte
K=cathode, A=anode. If you connect a zenner diode there, you will get the zenner voltage and measuring LEDs is more precise. Some testers work up to 5V, some up to 12V, some up to 30V. You will meed to check to see what is the limit of zenner voltage your tester have.
I also have both and there are some differences, however, I do noot trust them 100%, I mostly use them for sorting and quicly identifying components. Each one is better than the other in identifying transistors, SCRs, so I use both.
From time to time, I calibrate them.
Thanks for the tip Sebastian. I appreciate it. I found a thread on these testers over on the eevblog forum. Quite a bit of information over there on them.
can it be modded to not turn the screen off so quick, that'd annoy the heck out of me
Not that I'm aware of.
There is a video on how to increase the on time.
@@guateque1718 Do you know a search string that might work. like the description/title of the video?
@@uni-byte th-cam.com/video/fGBj6XiTR7M/w-d-xo.html
there were a few more but during a quick search this is the only one still online.
I've had the "Longrunner" (like the one in the case) tester since I started tinkering with electronics. It is great. I've seen it on a couple of other channels, they modded it: one put leads with grapplers on, the other put small banana connectors on the case.
The banana connectors sounds like a great idea. I'll have to see if I can find the room to do that.
and the one with the leads, he shows how he mods it: th-cam.com/video/Xk6lXow68uE/w-d-xo.html