Useful cheap small tester...

[Yorkie]

interesting stuff. you've done a grand job of housing the esr meter. I had wondered if extending the terminals would alter the readings. obviously not enough to worry about otherwise you would not have done it. I had took on board regards the small meter terminals. did you solder extension wires to the small terminals. thank you in advance. haven't received my meter yet. richie

Re the test leads, although I fitted quite short ones, I don't think longer leads would make an appreciable difference unless you wanted to accurately measure low value caps - say below 47pF, when the test leads might introduce some stray capacitance of perhaps 5pF or so. I've got three cap meters in which I can zero the display to null out any stray capacitance in the leads - it's usually about 5pF. For other measurements - ESR, higher value capacitors, inductors, resistors, transistors, the length of the test leads should have no appreciable effect.

The holes in the small test terminals on the PCB are similar in size to 'turned-pin' IC sockets and are designed so as to grip the wires of components pushed into them. I wouldn't on any account solder to these terminals - I just pushed short pieces of solid tinned wire about the same thickness as component ends such as resistors, which are typically 0.6mm diameter, then soldered those leads to the front panel sockets.

Had I been a bit more fussy I could have used three terminals from a 'header strip' like those in the attached pic, but solid wire is fine.

I tend to use this little tester more than other separate bits of test gear as it's so handy being multi-functional.

As others have said, you can carefully solder leads across the solder pads of the on-board push-button test switch to extend the wires to a front panel momentary push button switch.
(See Joe's pic at post #33).

I guess that in terms of frequency of use of test gear, for me, the top three that I use are:

1) My trusty £10.00 Toolzone multi-meter.
2) The multi-function cheap and cheerful tester that this thread is about.
3) A signal injector/tracer based on the Velleman K7000 kit.

Total outlay for these bargain basement items - about £30.00.

There's nothing I could buy at any price which would do the job any better.

Hope that helps Richie - best of luck with the meter when it arrives!