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The design presented here works by applying a 50kHz, 200mV square wave to the capacitor under test, in series

with a 10 Ohm resistor. The AC voltage appearing across that resistor is measured and displayed on a meter. So
the whole thing is nothing else than a simple ohmmeter that uses ultrasonic AC for measurement instead of the
usual DC used by every common ohmmeter. Since the Ac voltage used is so low, it does not make semiconductor
junctions enter conduction, which further helps to make this meter suitable for checking capacitors mounted in a
circuit.

Here is the schematic, which you can click on to get a larger version for printing.

One section of a dual low power operational amplifier is used as a square wave oscillator. A small ferrite core
transformer is used to step down the voltage and provide the necessary low impedance output. A 10 Ohm resistor
loads the output to absorb inductive spikes from the transformer, which could cause a false reading for low value
capacitors. The other section of the op amp amplifies the signal that gets through the capacitor being tested, and
its output is rectified and applied to a 50µA galvanometer through a calibration potentiometer. A small 5 Volt
regulator maintains the supply constant while the instrument is
being powered from anything between about 7 and 15 Volt. I
power the meter from the 13.8V bus which I have in my workshop,
but if you prefer, you can use a 9V battery instead, connected
through a switch. The power consumption of this circuit is so low
that a 9V battery should last at least 100 hours.

Building this ESR meter is simple and straightforward. I assembled


the circuit on a scrap piece of project board, and used a small
plastic box to install the board and the meter. The only part that
could pose problems to inexperienced builders is the transformer. I
made mine using an Amidon ferrite core, type EA-77-188, which
is a tiny double-E core having a cross section of  22mm2, and
external dimensions of  about 19x16x5mm total. I used the nylon
bobbin that Amidon delivers with it, wound a primary winding
consisting of 400 turns of AWG #36 wire, and as secondary I
wound 20 turns of AWG #26 wire. If you have a larger or smaller
core, you can adjust the turn numbers in inverse proportion to the cross section area. The wire size isn't critical -
the gauges I used are about 3 or 4 numbers thicker than necessary, while at the same time this bobbin has room
for wire at least two numbers thicker than the ones I used. Thus, you can choose from about 6 different wire
gauges for each winding, with negligible impact on the performance.

Considering that the transformer is so uncritical (because it runs at very low power), feel free to use any small
ferrite core you have on hand, as long as it has no air gap. Dead PC power supplies and old monitors or TVs are
great sources for such cores. Do not use an iron core, because it would probably have far too much loss at 50kHz.

The test leads are soldered into the circuit, and fixed in place using hot melt glue. Soldering them is much
preferable over using any sort of connectors, because this meter easily detects resistance as low as 0.1 Ohm, and a
connector can easily vary its resistance more than that! By the way, this set of test leads was bought as standard
tester replacement leads, for very little money.

The meter is a reasonably good one rated at 50µA full scale, which I had on hand. If you find a cheap VU meter
that works well, you can use it, of course. If you prefer to use a 100µA meter, change R11 to 50k. I used a trimpot
for R11, but you might want to use a panel-mount potentiometer instead, which would allow fine adjusting the
full-scale point if your meter happens to be unstable. If you use a cheap meter I would recommend this.

Calibration

Using the galvanometer's original scale, adjust its set screw for accurate zero position. With the circuit powered
up, short the test leads together, and adjust R11 precisely for a full-scale reading. Now, take off the meter front
cover, get a pencil and a few resistors in the range of 1 to 22 Ohm or so. Using the resistors as test objects, mark
the corresponding deflections on the meter scale. It's your choice if you keep this crude hand-drawn scale
indefinitely, or if you use it as a template to draw a definitive scale on the computer, print it and install it in the
meter. I did the latter, and you can see the results on the top of this page.

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