Useful cheap small tester...

[Yorkie]

I've now finished my meter, and have attached a few pics. It was a bit fiddly to make an extender for the push button as the movement is only 0.5mm when you press the button so I turned an 'extender' from black plastic rod, which had a hollow to fit over the push button switch on the PCB, and a 'shoulder' to locate it beneath the front panel. (0.5mm too tight in height would have meant the botton was permanently depresssed (and me too!).

I mounted the meter on spacers on a sub panel then screwed that to the front panel.

To connect the three test sockets I just pushed wires into the little test sockets on the PCB, and wired them to the front panel sockets.

I've attached a few pics showing tests of an electrolytic cap, where you can see the actual capacitance and the ESR; a 1K resistor (999R indicated - within 0.1%!); a diode; an RF choke - where it displays both the inductance and resistance, and ancient NOS OC71 transistor, where it indicates what it is (PNP), and the HFE (shown as 'B' - Beta).

For any components other than transistors, the component under test can be connected to any two of the three test points, any polarity, and for transistors, they can be connected to the three test points in any order. The display indicates polarty of caps/diodes, and the connections (ECB) of the transistor. I've got several other test meters for capacitance, inductance, resistance, ESR, and a Peak Electronics Transistor tester. They all give very similar results to this one, and to each other.

Remarkable value for money - gives the battery test, then tests the component, gives the readout, then auto shuts off after 20 secs.

What's not to like?

That's two projects finished in one week - I'm on a roll!