Something great showed up in the post, a package from Anatek with the Blue ESR meter kit.

I have been trying to get an LCD/LED TV set working. I was running into some problems in the diagnostics. Everyone I came across online that does TV work says the  best tool for basic electronics diagnostics is an ESR meter, and the Blue ESR is an affordable ESR solution. As a kit, it’s $80 and worth its weight in gold.

There aren’t a lot of parts, so the kit is fairly simple to assemble. The assembly order is based on parts types, first the 1% resistors, then the 5% resistors, followed by capacitors then semiconductors and so on.

Getting the parts on the board goes quickly. My best recommendation to anyone building the kit is to take your time and be sure of each part and it’s placement.

Once all of the parts are are on the board it’s time to calibrate the meter. Calibration is easiest if you have a variable power supply for testing the low battery indicator, but you can get away without one. The assembly instructions include a simple circuit you can build for this test.

Calibrating the meter itself only requires the two resistors included with the kit for this purpose and the turning of two trim pots. I decided to take the calibration resistors and keep them stashed in the battery compartment for possible recalibration at a later date.

With everything calibrated and running well it’s time to button it all up. After buttoning it all up, it’s time to get back to that TV project.

Although the TV project is still pending, the Blue ESR is done.  More to come on the TV in a future post.

~Jon KK6GXG