DER DE-5000 Measurement accuracy - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / testgear

author: The Electrician
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 22, 2014, 03:10:18 pm
content: Here are some measurements of capacitors comparing the DER DE-5000 to the Wayne-Kerr 6440B. The open/short cal on the DE-5000 was performed before making measurements. The caps were measured using the blade terminals of the DE-5000.Code:Nominal Capacitance Frequency Wayne-Kerr DE-5000100 pF 100 Hz 102.3 102100 pF 1 kHz 101.9 102.1100 pF 10 kHz 101.7 101.9100 pF 100 kHz 101.6 101.81000 pF 100 Hz 988.6 9891000 pF 1 kHz 988.0 988.81000 pF 10 kHz 987.5 988.21000 pF 100 kHz 987.2 987.910 nF 100 Hz 9.622 9.62610 nF 1 kHz 9.618 9.61910 nF 10 kHz 9.616 9.61710 nF 100 kHz 9.614 9.609100 nF 100 Hz 100.49 100.53100 nF 1 kHz 100.49 100.52100 nF 10 kHz 100.48 100.49100 nF 100 kHz 100.48 100.651 uF 100 Hz 1.102 1.1021 uF 1 kHz 1.096 1.0981 uF 10 kHz 1.083 1.0851 uF 100 kHz 1.066 1.0687.5 uF 100 Hz 7.512 7.5167.5 uF 1 kHz 7.505 7.5107.5 uF 10 kHz 7.513 7.5207.5 uF 100 kHz 9.954 10.78The 7.5 uF cap is approaching its SRF at 100 kHz, which causes its measured value to rise.I've noticed that large values, approaching the 20 uF max at 100 kHz, tend to read high on the DE-5000.One nice thing is that even though the DE-5000 can't measure the value of large capacitances at 100 kHz, it does get the Rs (ESR) correct, even for very large capacitors. For example, I have a "computer grade" capacitor with nominal value of 55,000 uF. The Wayne Kerr says the ESR is 7.6 milliohms, and the DE-5000 says 6 milliohms; that's not too bad!I'll do some measurements on inductors in another post.

author: rstoer
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: March 22, 2014, 03:22:14 pm
content: Thanks for taking the time to do this. As a DE-5000 owner it's good to know. I use mine all the time and I'm very pleased with it.

author: robrenz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 22, 2014, 03:44:26 pm
content: Milli Ohm testing video

author: The Electrician
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 22, 2014, 07:18:33 pm
content: Here are some measurements on inductors. I don't have a selection of inductors spanning exact orders of magnitude, so I had to use what I could find.All these inductors have ferromagnetic cores, so their measured value depends on the applied excitation level. The excitation applied by the DE-5000 is fixed, but I can vary the Wayne-Kerr's excitation from 1 mV to 10 V. I see variations of the same magnitude as the difference of the readings on the two instruments when I vary the excitation level for the Wayne-Kerr measurement.This means that we shouldn't expect the same level of agreement with ferromagnetic cored inductors.I found a really old universal wound "air core" inductor and made a single measurement at 10 kHz. The W-K measured 534.4 uH and the DE-5000 measured 534.9 uH.I notice in all these cap and inductor measurements, the DE-5000 seems to be measuring a tiny bit high.Code:Nominal Inductance Frequency Wayne-Kerr DE-50004.7 uH 100 Hz 4.84 44.7 uH 1 kHz 4.810 4.94.7 uH 10 kHz 4.795 4.854.7 uH 100 kHz 4.769 4.795100 uH 100 Hz 113.6 115100 uH 1 kHz 113.5 114.5100 uH 10 kHz 111.8 113.7100 uH 100 kHz 107.0 113.3500 uH 100 Hz 512.9 507500 uH 1 kHz 512.6 512.8500 uH 10 kHz 511.7 511.8500 uH 100 kHz 508.2 510.125 mH 100 Hz 25.63 25.5625 mH 1 kHz 25.57 25.6125 mH 10 kHz 25.49 25.6025 mH 100 kHz 27.54 27.75

author: Carrington
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 22, 2014, 07:45:18 pm
content: First, to "The Electrician", thank you very much for this post.Please can you do a comparison with capacitors below 100pF? Between 20pF and 0pF, for example.Thanks.Edit: I'm sorry haven't seen this before:https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/handheld-lcr-meter/msg410735/#msg410735

author: saturation
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 23, 2014, 12:20:34 pm
content: My kudos too Electrician, good to confirm the specifications of the DE-5000 is way within the published accuracy in the manual.

author: Shock
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 23, 2014, 12:41:32 pm
content: Just in case people missed it. Roberenz's great video is showing the IET brand.Would be interesting seeing them running back to back.Brand: DER EEModel: DE-5000Brand: IETModel: DE-5000

author: PedroDaGr8
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 23, 2014, 03:05:57 pm
content: Quote from: Shock on March 23, 2014, 12:41:32 pmIt's pretty much accepted that Der EE is the ODM for IET. The differences are likely minimal (based on whatever revision off the PCB Der EE was on when IET purchased their batch).

author: BravoV
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 23, 2014, 04:58:31 pm
content: The Electrician, thanks for doing this, its an eyes opener for these "relatively" cheap handheld LCR meters, I guess this kind of price/performance was unthinkable say like 10 years ago, isn't it ?Looking at so many results of many Cyrustek based LCR meters, its quite convincing that the true secret sauce of it's performance is in the Cyrustek chip sets.Even my el-cheapo Mastech MS5308 which supposed to be far inferior compared to so called by their really proud owners, the über alles "GenRad DE-5000", and still it performs very decent against your 5 digits priced LCR meter.Edit:Btw, since you have your self a very good and decent handheld LCR meter now, any plan to sell that boring and bulky 6440B ... cheaply ?

author: Pasky
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: March 24, 2014, 06:48:15 am
content: Thanks for the info, gives me confidence in the one I bought, been using it just to measure unmarked ceramics and such so far.