You need to measure inductance but you don't have any multimeter to do

that or not even an osciloscope to observe the signal. Well here we are
going to build a very cheap and easy inductance meter using the Arduino
microcontroller. This method is accurate with a scope from 80uH to
30,000uH, but it should work for inductors a bit smaller or much larger.

An inductor in parallel with a capacitor is called an LC circuit, and it will

electronically "ring" like a bell. Well regardless of the frequency or how hard
a bell is struck, it will ring at it’s resonating frequency. We will
electronically strike the LC bell, wait a bit to let things resonate, then take a
measurement. There is some internal resistance so this is really an RLC
circuit, and I’ll talk about this more in the math.

Now micro controllers are terrible at analyzing analog signals. The

ATMEGA328 ADC is capable of sampling analog signals at 9600hz or .1ms,
which is fast but no where near what this project requires. Let’s go ahead
and use a chip specially designed for turning real world signals into basic
digital signals: The LM339 comparator which switches faster than a normal
LM741 op amp, but there will be a schematic for the LM741 too.

As soon as the voltage on the LC circuit becomes positive, the LM339 will be
floating, which can be pulled high with a pull up resistor. When the voltage
on the LC circuit becomes negative, the LM339 will pull its output to ground.
I’ve noticed that the LM339 has a high capacitance on it’s output, which is
why I used a low resistance pull up.

So what we will do is applying a pulse signal to the LC circuit. In this case it

will be 5 volts from the arduino. We charge the circuit for some time. Then
we change the voltage from 5 volts directly to 0. That pulse will make the
circuit to resonate creating a cushioned sinusoidal signal oscilating at the
resonant frecuency. What we need to do is to measure that frecuency and
later using the formulas obtain the inductance value. We will use the
arduino to measure the frecuency and calculate the value. The resonant
frecuency is related with the next ecuation:

So we could obtain the L value because we know the F frecuency that

we've just measured and we also know the values f the C capacitor
because it's a component that we've selected. All we need is to obtain
L from this ecuation.
Since our wave is a true sinusoidal wave, it spends equal time above
zero volts and below zero volts. This means that the comparator will
turn it into a square wave with a duty of 50%, and pulseIn(pin, HIGH,
5000); will measure the time in microseconds elapsed from rising edge
to falling edge. This measurement can then be doubled to get the
period and the inverse of the period is the frequency. Since the circuit
is resonating, this frequency is the resonating frequency.

Above are the equations where F is the resonating frequency, C is

capacitance, and L is inductance. Solving for inductance will result in
the seacond equation

Since this is an RLC circuit due to internal resistance, it won’t change any
characteristics of the resonating frequency. The RLC will still resonate, but
the amplitude will die out. With a low resistance the RLC will tend to latch
onto the exact resonating frequency quicker. For you EE’s think of the
frequency response of an RLC with low resistance versus high resistance.