Pocket DMM

Preamble

Remember “Super Size Me”? Well this is “Pocket/Wallet/Card^* Size Me”…

^* Delete as appropriate

Capacitance checker

Preamble

ESR Meters… Is there something better than the MESR-100, or is it the Bee’s Knees (for the price)?

Metex MS-9150

Preamble

A 4-in-1 bench equipment… a very very heavy jack of all trades and master of none?

Thandar TF820

Preamble

A frequency meter

Pocket ‘scope

Preamble

Whilst updating my RC Transmitters – DIY – arduinorc page, and referring back to the original source document, ArduinoRC hardware page, I noticed this image on the Gallery link:

The little digital storage oscilloscope (DSO) looked both handy and cool.

So what is it, and how does it shape up?

Note that this page is a bit of a follow up from My first oscilloscope… that ‘scope is a beautiful device, but not practical in a small office nor is it particularly portable.

Software for DMM

Preamble

Looking for software for a Uni-T DMM (specifically a UT71D) that supports a Mac (OSX), and while Windows is supported, OSX isn’t, although it might work in Wine, Parallels, VMware Fusion, etc…

UT-D07A

Preamble

The UT-D07A is a BlueTooth adapter for the UT-71, UT-181 and UT-171 DMMs, and it costs around £20, if you shop around on eBay and AliExpress.

However, the UT-D07A is not much cop apparently… or rather the (iOS) software crashes regularly, there’s no Windows software to speak of, and basically, it’s probably not worth the cash… That said, it could be a useful addition, if you need to see graphical data. However, it is worth noting that as there is no Mac or Windows support, the ability to use that data, apart from obtaining pretty graphs from iPhone/iPad screenshots, may be rather limited

Feeling the need to clamp

Preamble

After watching Balance Charging: Can you parallel charge?, I realised that I needed a clamp meter. But which one?

I had already purchased a UNI-T UT71D DMM, see Choosing which Multimeter to buy, and I was very happy with it, so the UNI-T clamp meter seemed a logical choice.  Everyone seems to have the UNI-T 210E. However, there are a myriad of other options.

Testing 3D Printers

Preamble

It is imperative to be able to test the quality of 3D printers, and to have a standard test procedure, in order to be able to test like for like, and accurately compare printers.

Bench hardware

Preamble

After my recent purchase of an oscilloscope, I realised that I was also in the market for a bench power supply and a signal generator.

• The power supply should produce 0-15V @ 2A, but 30 V @ 5A would be good.
• Signal generator 5 MHZ, 5Vp-p (40 MHz, 10Vp-p), can make one using Arduino, but a bench boxed model would be nice
• Frequency Counter – I have one in my DMM, so not absolutely necessary, but a nice to have.