3 Ways to Check Capacitors in Circuit with Meters & Testers

what's up guys this is Tampa Tech and I get a question that pops up every now and then in my TV repair videos why aren't I using an ESR meter to check capacitors well ensure this is my go-to multimeter it checks everything capacitors resistors diodes transistors AC volts DC volts high this for 15 years and it still works great anytime the readings are really off and wacky is because the 9-volt battery is low so I just pop off this back cover put the new 9-volt battery in and it works great for another six months until the battery goes low I do have an ESR meter an ESR meter is great also I'm not saying it's not great but a lot of my viewers or just people that are trying to repair their living room broken living room TV or maybe they found I found the TV in a dumpster on the side of the road they want fixed up well you may not have an ESR meter this meter runs between 50 to 100 dollars if you're a technician you most likely have an ESR meter an ESR meter is equivalent series resistance meter it detects the resistance and a capacitor this is electrolytic capacitor electrolytic capacitors are mainly made of aluminum inside there's dielectric material and a paper soaked with electrolytes which can be a oil form or gel form if you take a microscope to that then you'll notice that it is layered like this electrolytic paper that's soaked with that gel or oil form the electrolytes the dielectric and the cathode and anode when the circuit is turned on with the capacitors in it the capacitor will hold a charge stabilizing the voltage and power in the circuit even when the capacitor is pulled from the circuit it still holds a charge over time five or six years down the road the capacitor may dry out and the value of the capacitor will go down while the resistance goes up if the capacitor is superheated it would begin to swell and leak the electrolytes the capacitance value will actually go down when the resistance value goes up so that's what this reads this meter reads capacitance level the value of the capacitor which is dumb this one is thirty three hundred microfarads right so you have to pull this out a circuit to read the capacitance the micro farad on this capacitor the beauty about this meter is that you can read it in circuit which is great so it sends up right here I tells you it sends a 100 K 100 kilohertz signal through the circuit and lets you know the results of that capacitor in circuit which is amazing so you really speed through checking all the capacitors without desoldering all the capacitors and soldering all back in there's a third way so those are two ways to read the capacitor using a pass over meter capacitance meter and ESR meter and your eyeballs yes or your sense of touch actually so you use your senses that's the third way this overheated and it popped so if the pastor looks like that you don't even have to check it just swap it out it should look like this this is a brand new capacitor see how the difference is this one's flat and this one is right here swollen now that's the most common repair is bad capacitors not not every bad capacitor pops some bad capacitors may look like this one so this one looks fine but it could be bad so that's what you have to check it using an ESR meter or capacitor meter if you guys are interested by the way in any of these meters well I can check out the links in the video description below this one is $50 pretty good I had no problems with it this one is about $100 this was 15 years old they have a newer model don't worry and I highly recommend fluke now with this meter it has no backlight but it does have auto ranging which is great and auto off and it has protective circuits if use in a diode to protect protected circuit when reading capacitors this also has a fuse and I believe a diode in here protecting hid circuit but you always want to dis Church the capacitors just in case you know you don't want to put any stress on these meters just use these needlenose pliers hold it by the insulator part the wrapping of the capacitor so you don't get shocked you want to touch the metal just hold it by the insulated cap wrapper right here and then close just right there just grab them both legs like that so this has Auto ranging and auto off as well and this actually has two power sources has right here in the back you could put two double-a batteries in here but I don't use the two double-a batteries I don't like wasting batteries I use the power port and the power port is a microUSB port and I like this power bank I think I got this for like eight bucks and put velcro on the back right here and just plug in and this lasts a very long time just turn it on and now it has power from the power bank and just press and hold this and it turns it on this has a backlight which is pretty cool and has auto range what I love auto-ranging meters saves me time and from I hate pushing buttons so first thing I do when I turn on my ESR meter is set it to zero and do the zeroing you just close these two leads together like just like that short them together and then press the zero button okay just like that now I should be ready to go you don't have to do that with this meter and switch it to capacitor mode which is right here so that's going to read the micro farad of the capacitor this is going to read the resistance of the capacitor the ohms 200 volt 250 volts 470 micro farad's now you don't read the 250 voltage that means 2 up to up to 250 volts can pass through this capacitor before it overheats and pops or swells and so we'll put my red lead on this side my black lead on the stripe side so anytime you see this striped side with a negative symbol that's the black lead the black is always negative and the red is always the positive side here it is and it is 450 microfarads alright and that's 470 micro farad's so if it was reading 10% lower than its value which is 470 micro farad's then i would replace the capacitor but since it's reading within the 10% of its value then i would keep it this is considered actually a decent capacitor but let's go ahead and read the ESR so I'm going to put my positive on this one and my negative on this side and look at it it's just reading a very low ohms resistance point zero 3 and it tells you right here which is pretty cool it says good cap which means good capacitor with low E SR low resistance and it is it's point 0.05 the most and you can also look at the chart so we got 250 volts all right and the closest to 470 micro farad's would be right here 470 250 volts 0.3 and it's way below 0.3 it's actually 0.09 so is it definitely a good capacitor so they're both the both meters say hey this is a good capacitor this is a bad capacitor this is a thousand microfarads what is that 10 volt yeah I think it says 10 volt you could look at it and physically it looks swollen looks popped okay so I would automatically change this out you know for another capacitor I won't even check it with my meter I would just change it out you know same thing goes with resistors resistors look burned if they look burned replace them if you see a transistor with a pin hole burned right through the transistor replace it if your board is scorched and it looks burned up then replace the board getting a hundred so it's really really low this should be reading one thousand microfarads on this I put that there put that there and I am getting a very high homes for capacitor so I'm getting high resistance for this capacitor 8.9 R 9 ohms pretty much it tells you right here it says good if the past that R is less than the value of 10 microfarads well it's a thousand microfarads it's not 10 microfarads so it's telling you that it's bad it's telling you right here that it's been it's telling you right here it's bad if you look on this chart let's look at 10 volts at thousand microfarads I should get no more of no higher than this is worst case scenario by the way so if you get any higher than 0.1 2 ohms then it is defective and it's 10 ohms so it's definitely definitely bad and it's sending that 100 kilohertz signal right through this capacitor and that's why you're getting this value all right so let's go ahead and read the bad capacitors that are in this y-sustain board I pull this board from a samsung plasma TV they had no power and this is a y-sustain board right here that has a bad capacitor and so I would automatically switch this out and this one as well to see this one was actually popped too as well so anyhow let's go ahead and check these Quebec capacitors and some kind of values you get in circuit and at a circuit flip it over before reading any capacitor in circuit or at a circuit always discharge the capacitor just like that 2.25 ohms and it says good if the capacitor is less than 22 micro farad's well it's not it's actually 680 micro farad capacitor it is debit saying hey it's definitely bad without a doubt you should always read your capacitors add a circuit using capacitor meter like this one because this actually it's reading the micro farad's from the capacitor the capacitance of the capacitor and for my black lead on the black and the red light on a positive side and I'm getting a reading of looks like 273 250 looks like it's staying around 240 alright so let's go ahead and pull it and see if we get the same reading now usually if you're reading this capacitor near other capacitors you're going to pick up the value of the other capacitors and you may ask as like why not like aren't going to pick up the value of other capacitors using this meter well this meter uses a 100 kilohertz sine wave signal running through that individual capacitor and that's how you get this value on the screen there you go got it out so go ahead and now I'm going to turn that off see if we get the same value I'm guessing probably it's going to be slightly off put my black lead on this side and we are getting a value of drumroll 290 micro farad's now let's go ahead and check the ESR meter and see if we get the same value okay put it on positive and this side and it looks like we are getting 1.9 looks like 1.9 ohms so it is slightly off so I'm going to read the middle one actually it's a 150 micro farad's 250 volt right there I could read that or not see that I circled it right there for you and we're going to discharge it let's discharge all three one two three discharge the other ones as well and now let's go ahead and read the value and see if it reads 150 microfarads I'm guessing it's probably not say I'm getting eight hundred eight hundred ninety nine hundred twenty seven microfarads so it's way higher if the capacitor was bad it would be way lower than 150 micro farad's so always read the capacitor when you're reading capacitor it has to be within ten percent of its value this read goes to the plus side and the black posted a negative side of the capacitor we are reading point zero zero eight ohms very very low ESR and it actually says it on the screen good cap with low ESR so it's without a doubt a good capacitor even though on this it said it was reading really really high so guys if you're interested in any of these meters that I shown today go ahead and click on the links in the video description below and if you know anyone that's interested in electronics go ahead and click on the share button below and if you found this video informative or you like my TV repair playlist go ahead and give me a big thumbs up it lets me know that you guys are interested in videos like these and go ahead and click on the subscribe button right here to subscribe for future how-to videos coming your way and click on this video right here for my TV repair playlist later guys

Channel: TampaTec

Views: 1,297,498

Rating: 4.840385 out of 5

Keywords: how to, cómo, CAPACITORS, how to check capacitors, diodes, resistors, transistors, how to read capacitors, reading capacitors, circuit, circuit board, in-circuit, tester, meter, multimeter, incircuit, how to check capacitors in circuit, MESR-100, ESR meter, how to use, TV repair, LED, LCD, TV, repair, fix, guide, tutorial, learn, electronics, 1000uf, 2200uf, what is a ESR meter, how to test capacitors, 3300uf, voltage, caps (electronics), soldering, remove capacitors, capacitor meters, capacitor tester

Id: qDABYKoVO4Q

Length: 14min 48sec (888 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 17 2016

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