Excellent review! I just ordered one from Amazon. Hands down, the best review on youtube. Sadly, there is another review video on youtube, where the reviewer is wearing shorts, is barefoot and sitting cross-legged on an outdoor sidewalk.
The other reviewer is Peter Parker of Melbourne. He knows what he's talking about, and there's nothing "sad" about his review. His shorts, bare feet, and crossed legs are _entirely_ beside the point. He is very-well respected in the electronics community he addresses.
There's also the Extech LCR200 which has quite a bit of functionality on the spec sheet, and cost-wise sits between some of the "cheaper" brands (Voltcraft is sold a lot in Germany, some of their devices look like rebranded Uni-T) and BKPrecision. That thing has been out for a rather long time, yet there doesn't seem to be much in terms of user opinion.
@tikkiu7345 I have bought the DE-5000 directly from Japan from EBay with all adapters. Finally, I have saved a lot of money compared to the prices in Amazon ;-)
Thanks for another great review and teardown, I will be getting one of these on order tomorrow for my lab and maybe the DCA PRO also as they look like a great unit for testing transistor pin outs etc, I have just ordered the Makerbot 2 3D printer and that should be with us this week so may well make a batch of these tilt bails and offer them on our BasicMicroUK site, they do seem to do a great job with customer service at Peak, We have also just got in the full range of the Saleae Logic Analyzers, would you be interested in reviewing one of those ?, Many Thanks Dave
david ellis The DCA is a really handy piece of kit to have on the work bench, and the customer service is what initially interested me in these items of test equipment. I would definitely be interested in reviewing the Saleae - you can send me an e-mail at the address on my channel "About" page. Thank you :)
Just seen this video - thanks! I'm split between buying this LCR45, the Tenma 72-3520, and DER EE DE-5000? Naturally I'd prefer to buy from Peak Electronics, but as the Tenmaand DE-5000 allows us various parallel or series modeling, I'm kinda wondering ....
I reverse engineered the soft-switching circuit at 24:00, you can read about it in detail at my blog keepdevelopingprojects.wordpress.com/2016/09/09/soft-switching-reverse-engineering-lcr45/
Looks like another nice unit from this company, really good form factor and performance. I'm not sure of the usefulness of displaying impedance for LC components at two or three preset frequencies though... I think I'd rather see ESR, D, Q, and the phase angle at standard manufacturer test frequencies. I can calculate the impedance myself for my own application at the correct frequency. Now if the test frequency was user defined, or it could sweep a range of frequencies to determine the SRF, that would be super cool. But that would be hard to do at this size and price point.
dwDragon88 I see your point - yes it would be great to select your own test frequency or even turn this into a low cost gain phase analyser if PC connectivity was added. They could add in a DDS chip to sweep the frequencies which would be a really nice feature without being horribly complex to implement.
Excellent review! I just took a peek into my LCR40 and it seems to have the identical hardware, same PCB version and markings as well as the main components. Do you think that one could just flash the LCR45 firmware to LCR40 somehow?
tomaja1 Yes, the programming header is there for firmware updates. Almost certainly you could send an e-mail to Peak and they'll update the firmware for a small fee - probably just the price difference between the two devices and £3 postage.
Nice that they test at 100kHz, most LCR's go to 10kHx only. I design power stuff, so for me this is great, but I already have several LCR meters one of which goes to 200kHz, ...sorry Peak :(
Excellent review! I just ordered one from Amazon. Hands down, the best review on youtube. Sadly, there is another review video on youtube, where the reviewer is wearing shorts, is barefoot and sitting cross-legged on an outdoor sidewalk.
The other reviewer is Peter Parker of Melbourne. He knows what he's talking about, and there's nothing "sad" about his review. His shorts, bare feet, and crossed legs are _entirely_ beside the point. He is very-well respected in the electronics community he addresses.
There's also the Extech LCR200 which has quite a bit of functionality on the spec sheet, and cost-wise sits between some of the "cheaper" brands (Voltcraft is sold a lot in Germany, some of their devices look like rebranded Uni-T) and BKPrecision. That thing has been out for a rather long time, yet there doesn't seem to be much in terms of user opinion.
Nice video. Well paced with plenty of information. Thanks.
Thank you for this excellent review, it answers all of my questions and the LCR45 is now on my shopping list. Rgds, Graham de G4VUX
Nice thorough review.
FYI, "Fluke eighty-seven five".
Thy! I would like to see a comparison to de-5000
@tikkiu7345 I have bought the DE-5000 directly from Japan from EBay with all adapters. Finally, I have saved a lot of money compared to the prices in Amazon ;-)
Nice teardown. What I dont see in the PIC161788 datasheets are the ADC and DAC INL and DNL figures. they probably acceptable for the this job.
***** I think they call it EIL and EDL in the Microchip datasheet, just to be different...
Hi. Just curious, whats r52 on the meter?
Thanks for another great review and teardown, I will be getting one of these on order tomorrow for my lab and maybe the DCA PRO also as they look like a great unit for testing transistor pin outs etc,
I have just ordered the Makerbot 2 3D printer and that should be with us this week so may well make a batch of these tilt bails and offer them on our BasicMicroUK site, they do seem to do a great job with customer service at Peak,
We have also just got in the full range of the Saleae Logic Analyzers, would you be interested in reviewing one of those ?,
Many Thanks
Dave
david ellis The DCA is a really handy piece of kit to have on the work bench, and the customer service is what initially interested me in these items of test equipment.
I would definitely be interested in reviewing the Saleae - you can send me an e-mail at the address on my channel "About" page. Thank you :)
Dave you just threw your hard earned $$$ down drain. Should have got yourself a better meter. DE-5000.
Just seen this video - thanks!
I'm split between buying this LCR45, the Tenma 72-3520, and DER EE DE-5000?
Naturally I'd prefer to buy from Peak Electronics, but as the Tenmaand DE-5000 allows us various parallel or series modeling, I'm kinda wondering ....
I've used the Tenma quite a lot, but I did not find it particularly good. If you need the additional functionality, I'd go for the DE-5000
@@sdgelectronics Many thanks for your reply, appreciated!
@@sdgelectronics Bought the DE-5000 a few weeks ago - very pleased with it. Seems to be a semi-serious piece if kit. Thanks for the suggestion.
I wonder how the Extech LCR200 compares to other meters, it costs around $260 U.S. dollars.
I reverse engineered the soft-switching circuit at 24:00, you can read about it in detail at my blog keepdevelopingprojects.wordpress.com/2016/09/09/soft-switching-reverse-engineering-lcr45/
Looks like another nice unit from this company, really good form factor and performance. I'm not sure of the usefulness of displaying impedance for LC components at two or three preset frequencies though... I think I'd rather see ESR, D, Q, and the phase angle at standard manufacturer test frequencies. I can calculate the impedance myself for my own application at the correct frequency. Now if the test frequency was user defined, or it could sweep a range of frequencies to determine the SRF, that would be super cool. But that would be hard to do at this size and price point.
dwDragon88 I see your point - yes it would be great to select your own test frequency or even turn this into a low cost gain phase analyser if PC connectivity was added. They could add in a DDS chip to sweep the frequencies which would be a really nice feature without being horribly complex to implement.
Excellent review!
I just took a peek into my LCR40 and it seems to have the identical hardware, same PCB version and markings as well as the main components.
Do you think that one could just flash the LCR45 firmware to LCR40 somehow?
tomaja1 Yes, the programming header is there for firmware updates. Almost certainly you could send an e-mail to Peak and they'll update the firmware for a small fee - probably just the price difference between the two devices and £3 postage.
SDG Electronics Thanks!
Thanks !,also can u please make a review on zener tester fro Peak Atlas ZEN 50
Ajay Rao I'll do my best... Thanks for watching.
Nice info, thanks :)
It gets a thumbs up for me too. Thanks.
microsiemens... That sounds like the results of my sperm count!
Nice that they test at 100kHz, most LCR's go to 10kHx only. I design power stuff, so for me this is great, but I already have several LCR meters one of which goes to 200kHz, ...sorry Peak :(