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| Reviews Summary for Almost All Digital Electronics L/C Meter IIB |
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write your own review of the Almost All Digital Electronics L/C Meter IIB.
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AD5X
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Rating: 5/5
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Jul 13, 2008 17:53
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Great Instrument
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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I ordered this on Friday afternoon, July 4th. Got a response from AADE about an hour later saying it would ship the next day (Saturday). Received it in the mail on Monday July 7th and had it together about an hour later. I made one mod to the unit - I drilled a small hole in the side of the case to make adjustment of the display contrast easy with the case put together. Anyway, this is a great L/C meter. I like the auto-zero capability, and it appears very accurate (checked against my old GR1656 inpedance bridge). I've wanted something easier to use than my GR1656, and this really does the job.
Phil - AD5X
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PA0RCL
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Rating: 5/5
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Jun 25, 2008 08:51
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Great kit, excellent meter
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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Half of the pleasure of the radio hobby is to build your own stuff. So why not your own test equipment. Here is an excellent kit that does exactly what it is supposed to do, measure L's and C's accurately. It took me about an hour and a half to put it together and it worked right away. I agree with earlier reviewers that the instructions are not always very clear, but if you take the time to study them carefully you can't go wrong. The accuracy of the meter is amazing, especially in the case of low value C's and L's.
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N4LTA
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Rating: 5/5
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May 12, 2008 13:42
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Inexpensive and excellent performance
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Time owned: 6 to 12 months
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This is a very nice piece of test equipment at a very low cost. One of the only available low cost devices to measure unknown inductance and very accurate from my experience. Excellent for matching parts in phasing circuits. I bought mine assembled.
I find it amusing that some felt it did not match the ranges they wanted - dang - read the specs??
A very nice, accurate inexpensive piece of test equipment - a refreshing change from a world of Chinese junk at similar pricing.
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W8YT
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Rating: 5/5
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May 1, 2008 19:35
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Excellent meter
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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It's great to have one of these when you are putting a kit together, etc, to identify caps with no markings or that all look alike. Also to sort all of your inductors that were unknown inductance. Self-calibrating and easy to use - this is one of the most useful meters on your bench. Definitely worth the money.
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N4QY
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Rating: 4/5
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Dec 29, 2007 08:27
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Well Pleased
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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After doing some small SMT kits, I had no problem identifying all parts correctly. However, a lighted magnifying glass will help immensely.
I had expected that the PC board would have labels indicating where the parts went. It did not, but with the detailed pictures, parts location was not a problem.
Do read the instructions all the way thru before you start.
I had to study the pictures to determine how to place the 16 pin male square post plug. The guard on mine was different than the one in the instructions. The picture for installing the voltage regulator shows the correct orientation for the connector. The instructions say "Install the connector with the guard toward the bottom of the PCB", but does not define what the guard is. If the instructions defined the guard and said "install the connector with the guard toward the 16 pin IC socket", it would have been much clearer.
The 16 pin female square post socket pins did not take solder easily - not sure why - but ohming them out showed good connections.
It worked when I turned it on, and had fun measuring a bunch of known value inductors and capacitors.
I would rate the instructions as a "4". They are certainly adequate for an experienced builder, but could be clearer, which would help a first time builder.
I would rate the meter itself as a "5". I am quite happy with the finished product.
It is a very nice addition to my work shop, and will come in handy as I build a homebrew station.
I am an experienced builder having built many kits as well as some homebrewing, and a 50 year ham.
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K9GXC
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Rating: 5/5
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Mar 20, 2007 21:40
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All time most useful instrument in my shop
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Time owned: more than 12 months
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I think I own three of these. Maybe I gave one away to a friend. This is the only inexpensive measuring device I know of that is useful for measuring a few pf and a few 10s of nHy. It's no loss to me that it doesn't measure microfarads or henries. I bought the units assembled because the price difference was small. However, the availabiltiy as a kit is a boon to those on a low budget. The first one I bought was the L/C Meter II. The case was a little primitive. I like the new version better. It's a lot more professional. This is a really clever design and its self calibrating feature makes it as accurate as units costing many times more. Like all measuring instruments you need to know something about how it works so you can interpret the results. This is especially true for inductors with ferrite cores where the results depend on frequency. This works at a few hundred kHz which is a reasonable compromise to my mind. I can recommend this unit highly, especially if you need to measure small capacitances and inductances.
73 de Jim K9GXC since 1956
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VA7DH
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Rating: 5/5
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Dec 14, 2006 18:52
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Useful work bench tool for RF work
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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I received my AADE L/C Meter IIB in very quick time and was pleased that it arrived so quickly. I have wanted a tool like this for a very long time and was not dissapointed. Some people have mentioned the quality of printing for the instructions. I can see that there is a bit of a problem there. A better alternative may be to go to the AADE WEB site and download a copy of the instructions from it and print them off on your own printer.
This is their web site: http://www.aade.com/lcmeter.htm
The very tiny capacitors were a bit of a chore for me to sort out but once I re-read through all of the instructions and reviewed the parts layout diagrams it all became clear. One thing though, the PC board is very nice quality as is also the case and other material. Good stuff.
I could have built my own L/C meter from scratch but it would not have matched the quality of this one. One of the prime factors that swayed me was that the meter had self calibrating capabilities built into it's software. That self calibration actually does quite a reasonable job.
If a person is looking for a high precision meter for a lab bench then this may not be for them. This meter was only about $100 in US funds, not several hundred dollars but plenty good enough for my bench.
I'm really going to enjoy using it. Tinkering with RF components will be a lot more fun now that I can wind my own coils, build my own capacitors, and actually know what the values are. Thanks AADE! and 73
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N2HTT
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Rating: 5/5
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Jun 17, 2006 06:46
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Very handy for small caps and inductors
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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My DMM reads large value capacitors, but for coils and the small value caps common in kit building, this is the tool.
My kit went together easily in about 90 minutes. I think the build instructions have been improved since some of the other reviews were written. There were no mysteries - not even the tantalum cap!
Nice easy to read display.
I used this tool to adjust all the filter toroids during my build of an HF Packer amp, with excellent results.
It's a keeper.
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KA7OEI
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Rating: 5/5
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May 12, 2006 15:41
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Useful addition to the bench!
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Time owned: more than 12 months
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Years ago, I saw a brief mention of this meter in QST (one of those "blurbs" at the bottom of an article) and, needing an L/C meter anyway, decided to get one. When it arrived, there was a note included that it had the new "B" version of software, even though the front cover didn't say so.
While the circuit board was completely devoid of markings, having plenty of homebrew experience and the schematic allowed easy assembly of the unit - and it worked the first time it was powered up. Were I giving it a rating as just a "kit" I might rate it at 3 for this - but the "5" is for its operation as a piece of handy test equipment.
Rummaging around the junk box, I started testing parts - and gathered a few "precision" components that I'd had laying around and checking them, too: The meter was well-within its stated specifications - but I noticed that the readings were precisely "off" by the same amount, so I replaced the calibration capacitor with a polystyrene unit and a small trimmer cap and "dialed" it in to where it agreed perfectly with the precision caps (within their tolerances) that I had - and the inductors read what they were supposed to be as well.
As mentioned in the documentation, once you get above a few mH or above a few 10ths of a microfarad, the accuracy starts to fall apart - and it really doesn't work at all with electrolytics - but since I got it to measure small values of inductance and capacitance, that wasn't any problem at all.
I've used it to wind and check all sorts of coil/caps - even those in the single-digit pF range was well as coils in the 10's of nH range: One simply need to be careful to take into account stray reactances and check the zeroing of the unit before and after measuring the component.
The unit has been around the bench for a long time now - and it's white case and label is getting pretty beat up, but it still works great.
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N4HY
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Rating: 5/5
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Mar 20, 2006 21:20
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Nice tool, trivial kit
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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The kit is trivial except for one tantalum. The documentation, poor quality pictures in black and white, unnecessarily complicate the construction. Nevertheless, I struggled on and completed it 30 minutes and it worked immediately. I grabbed caps and inductors of all types and measured them successfully. It is completely self calibrating.
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