Need an LCR Meter

I'm looking to purchase a reasonably priced LCR meter, cheap is better but accuracy is more important. Hand-held would be great too. There are several on Amazon I've looked at for about $50 to $200 but I have no idea of the reputation of the companies. Can anyone offer any input on these companies or suggest another LCR meter? We have plenty of DMMs around that do the standard resistance, voltage, and some of them do capacitance and we also have a 6.5 digit meter as well. The main test we're looking for right now is inductance down to under 100uH.

These are the two on Amazon I was looking at:
Amazon.com: Mastech Digital Multimeter & LCR Meter, MS8222H: Home Improvement
$50 - There was a rewview of a different Mastech meter that that it was pretty much worthless for C and L measurements. Don't know if this one is OK or not.

Amazon.com: Extech 380193 Passive Component LCR Meter: Home Improvement
$200 - This one has a review where someone said it reads down to 1uH reasonably well. I'm inclined to purchase this one.

Do you want to measure the inductors at only a couple of frequencies, such as 120 Hz and/or 1kHz? Or, do you need to measure at other frequencies? Do you need to be able to measure the Q of the inductor as well? And if so, at what frequency?

Just how accurately do you need to measure?

You might check out this one, they make excellent little products, and highly portable (all PIC based).

Peak Electronic Design Limited - Atlas LCR - Passive Component Analyser - Model LCR40

For this current project, 20 kHz and we don't need the Q, accuracy needs to be +/- about 50 uH (so not very much).

It looks like the Peak unit fits the bill Thanks!

Check out the **broken link removed**. I have one, and it works well.

There is a nice DIY lc meter here that I recently made here Works very well although I have not compared to another device yet. Hopefully soon to change!

Noggin said:

For this current project, 20 kHz and we don't need the Q, accuracy needs to be +/- about 50 uH (so not very much).

It looks like the Peak unit fits the bill Thanks!

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You might want to read the faq for the Peak: https://www.electro-tech-online.com/custompdfs/2010/03/lcr_faqs.pdf

It doesn't measure at just one frequency.

Here's a little unit that would meet your requirements, and can be used to measure the ESR of capacitors, and the Q of inductors (at a particular frequency, of course).

**broken link removed**

Thanks for the additional comments and suggestions, but I've already ordered the Atlas one. I couldn't view your link though Olly K. And you've got me worried now about the Peak unit Electrician... we'll see how it goes. I'll post back on my thoughts.

Thanks again everyone.

http://www.marc.org.au/ click lc meter under projects.

Noggin said:

Thanks for the additional comments and suggestions, but I've already ordered the Atlas one. I couldn't view your link though Olly K. And you've got me worried now about the Peak unit Electrician... we'll see how it goes. I'll post back on my thoughts.

Click to expand...

I've got two Peak units, the LCR meter and the ESR meter, I'm VERY happy with both of them.

Noggin said:

Thanks for the additional comments and suggestions, but I've already ordered the Atlas one. I couldn't view your link though Olly K. And you've got me worried now about the Peak unit Electrician... we'll see how it goes. I'll post back on my thoughts.

Thanks again everyone.

Click to expand...

Get on eBay and search for; LCR Meter TH2821A

Hi friends,
Please find in attached ZIP file the LC meter project.
Firmware is written By Svetoslav Pirev with CCS PIC C compiler.
Schematics and PCB is designed with Protel.
Special thanks to Svetoslav Pirev.
Best regards,
Taner