Hello Ken.
I suspect that you are familiar with the GM328 testers I mention
but may not have ever heard them called by that name.? Here is one
of which there are a gazillion on ebay and Amazon and AliExpress
and Banggood and...!
They do transistors as well ad resistors, capacitors, and
inductors
the above are only samples of the many links and pages but these
testers are the $15 or so general purpose testers sometimes with
cases and sometimes not. They use an AVR chip (ATMega328P or
ATMega32U)
My JLCPCB boards still have not arrived although tracking said 2
days ago that it was "tendered for delivery" but no clue what that
really means or who the carrier is.
I would be very interested in seeing your 3D enclosure.? Hopefully
it is not like the GM328 plexiglass enclosure I have that is not
big enough to also include the 9v battery in the case.
Thank you.
Jim Pruitt
WA7DUY
On 2/3/2022 5:18 AM, Ken KM4NFQ wrote:
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Hello Jim WA7DUY,
I like my new LC Meter very much.
My LC Meter has stand-offs, but no enclosure.
I do not have access to a 3D printer.
I keep it in a small cardboard box when it is not in use.
The smallest capacitor I have is marked 2.2pF.
It measures that at 2.173 pF
The smallest inductor I have is marked 1 uH.
It measure that at 809.6 nH (0.8096 uH)
I am not familiar with the GM.
Regards,
Ken, KM4NFQ "Not Fully Qualified"
/g/w8bhMorseTutor
Ken,
how do you like that LC meter?? I ordered a few boards
from JLCPCB that I hope will be here tomorrow.? What did
you use for a case/enclosure?
How does it do with low value L and or C?? I have several
of the Chinese GM328's and none of them measure below
about 30uh or 30pf and if they do the value is wrong.? I
know VK3BHR had a variation of the GM328 that reads low
values.
Thank you.
Jim Pruitt
WA7DUY
On 2/2/2022 8:20 AM, Ken KM4NFQ wrote:
Greetings,
I recently built an LC Meter, designed by a fellow called coreWeaver,
which he based on Neil Heckt's AADE LC Meter.
coreWeaver made the hardware Open Source.
His software is also Open Source, but is written in BASCOM BASIC, and
uses the AVR BASCOM compiler.
The LC Meter uses an Atmel ATmega328P-PU microcontroller, the one used
by the Arduino UNO.
However, instead of the crystal being 16 MHz, as is the MCU in the
UNO, coreWeaver uses an 8 MHz crystal.
Some of the components he uses were rather hard-to-find here in the USA.
More information about the coreWeaver LC Meter can be found here:
Hackaday article:
Hackaday project:
GitHub repository:
4-part video tutorial at YouTube:
When I decided to try and build coreWeaver's LC Meter, I ordered the
PCBs from OSH Park:
They sent some very nice PCBs to me, and I sent one to Bruce W8BH.
Bruce built his and wrote a very nice document about his build:
However, the coolest thing that Bruce did was to write Arduino IDE
compatible code for the ATmega328P-PU.
I was able to compile and upload Bruce's LC Meter code to my LC Meter
and it works GREAT!
Neil Heckt, the designer of the AADE LC Meter passed away on August 19th, 2015.
The AADE LC Meter has been discontinued and is no longer available.
I think that the coreWeaver LC Meter with Bruce's LC Meter Arduino
sketch is a good replacement for the AADE LC Meter.
If you build your own radios, or any other electronics that require
hand-wound toroids, then you need a good LC Meter.
Regards,
Ken, KM4NFQ "Not Fully Qualified"
/g/w8bhMorseTutor
