Quote:
Originally Posted by Tubejunke
I think what I will do for the time being is use the capacitor function on my DMM for capacitor value and use the load test on the Heathkit C3 too see what really goes on under more real world conditions. That is the main reason that I wanted one of the older units in the first place. I do sort of wish that I didn't jump on the first thing I saw now realizing that there are much better capacitor testers out there. Of course they would need work too most likely. I used to have a rule in that I don't want my restoration equipment to need restoring, but sometimes they just don't make things the way that they used to, so you have to adapt. Really, I like the old equipment better in certain cases; I just don't have time to rebuild everything I find, or need.
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"Better" units? It is a wein-bridge. If you use tight tolerance components and construction it will be very accurate, Heathkit or not. Visualize it as an old style weighing-scale (like the statues of Justice are holding.) You're putting a known value in one pan (precision component) and comparing it to your unknown. If your fulcrum is precise, your measurement will also be precise.
Granted, I agree that it isn't good for testing modern-application caps to precision measurements, but for anything from the discrete analog era(which is less likely to complain about exact values anyway), a 0.2% error is nothing to worry about. LCR/ESR meters have their applications, but sometimes you just need to slap 40v onto a cap and observe what happens.