Sencore - Capacitor And Inductor Analyzer [ LC-53 ] - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Amarbir[Lynx-India]
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 23, 2012, 06:24:50 pm
content: Hello Friends ,For My Repair Work I Wanted To Have a Capacitor Analyzer " Inductor is a Bonus lol " . I Already have a Protek 608 Multimeter With Capacitance Test , A ESR Meter of Bob Parker and a LCRQ Meter From Tonghui Model TH2821A .In The Past Few Days I Have been repairing a lot of vintage era and not so vintage era Multimeters [ Voms and VTVM's ] .I started to feel the urge to buy a capacitor leagake tester that can go upto 600 volts .My intial thoughts were to buy the Heatkit IT-11 And Heathkit IT-28 .But then i Saw that we can even buy the not so old stuff from Sencore .I chanced upon the LC-53 Meter and i found it to be good for my work so i ended up buying it like always.Hre is the Photo of the Sencore LC-53 i have purchased .I would like to know how many of you have used this meter and some good tips and tricks for the same .Is it wise to restore some electrolytic caps in this before usage or its best left as is .The photo of the materialManual Is Here ->Click Here

author: SeanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 23, 2012, 08:10:07 pm
content: Open it up and do the usual look for sick looking caps and change them. Old enough to have a linear power supply, so only those that are really sick ( or are ones with a punched plate lead from the 1970's in an axial case with a white/cream rubber and bakelite seal) need to be changed with good quality new ones.

author: Amarbir[Lynx-India]
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 23, 2012, 08:20:09 pm
content: Quote from: SeanB on September 23, 2012, 08:10:07 pmAlright ,Right Now its With The Seller And He Will ship To My USA Office .Then Once i Get It To India in my lab i will tear it apart for you folks .Hopefully some member does have this and can advise me with his experience

author: zaoka
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 23, 2012, 09:15:14 pm
content: I had LC103 from Sencore for few years, never found a single capacitor that failed leakage test and that it could not be detected by a regular ohm meter.Looks like that happen often only in Sencore advertising materialQuality of Sencore is top of the line.

author: Amarbir[Lynx-India]
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 23, 2012, 09:34:43 pm
content: Quote from: zaoka on September 23, 2012, 09:15:14 pmWell,We Here Are Dying To Understand The Experience .You Mean To Say You had a useless piece of equiptment for years and your Ohm Meter did a better job.May we know what ohm meter you have gentlemen .You have topsy turvied my 15 days research by saying this . ?

author: SeanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 24, 2012, 05:33:33 am
content: My test for high voltage caps is to use the insulation tester and apply 1000V to the 450VAC units. Listen for crackling inside as they self heal and toss them. If they do not crackle then they are still good. Big correlation between the film units arcing over at the nominal test voltage ( a 450VAC unit will be tested during manufacture at 1000V) and a short life, and on opening a few I find large areas of burnt foil.

author: Amarbir[Lynx-India]
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 24, 2012, 01:33:09 pm
content: Quote from: SeanB on September 24, 2012, 05:33:33 amSir ,I Hear People On Vintage Forums talking about " capacitor reformation " whats that.

author: SeanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 24, 2012, 02:14:07 pm
content: That is applying a limited current to old leaky capacitors so that they gradually self heal and improve. Not recommended to do, better to replace the old dried out ones with new, as a reformed unit will sooner or later fail and possibly damage other components that are hard to get.If you need the look, take the old unit and carefully cut it open and remove the insides and replace with a modern unit, which will most likely be a smaller one that will fit inside. Then close up the case and it will look original but will be more reliable.

author: Amarbir[Lynx-India]
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 24, 2012, 03:11:36 pm
content: Quote from: SeanB on September 24, 2012, 02:14:07 pmThanks Sean ,i got it now .Lets see how soon this lands here and i disect it for you guys

author: SeanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 24, 2012, 03:25:54 pm
content: Looking forward to that.

author: zaoka
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 25, 2012, 08:53:00 pm
content: Quote from: Amarbir[Lynx-India] on September 23, 2012, 09:34:43 pmI did not say a word "useless", its great test equipment, especially "ringer test" I love, however, way overpriced.I said and will say again that, leaky capacitor, that can only be detected with Sencore are EXTREMLY rare, so rare that I can tell you right away that you will never come across one and that it could not be detected by ohm meter.In theory it may happen that capacitor is for example rated to 250V and that it leaks if more than 200V is applied, in real world that almost never happens.I use Triplett 630 ohm metter with 100.000 range, it uses 30V battery for this range.