#lcr-reader

On a short trip to Shenzhen in May, Siborg created local connections for manufacturing, including components for a new model of LCR-Reader. They also appointed a sales manager for a new sales office in China which will handle all of Southeastern Asia. 

Siborg Systems Inc. is having a sale from March 1st to March 8th 2018 for the LCR-Reader-MP. The sale is in celebration of the device being available for 6 months and that our global distributors are now offering the device. You can see a list of distributors here https://tinyurl.com/y9yq4sa9. Visit the LCR-Reader Store on March 1st to get a discount!

Waterloo based Siborg Systems Inc. has been working with the Institute of Automation and Electrometry at the Russian Academy of Sciences in Novosibirsk, Russia, in creating a new calibration fixture for LCR-Reader and other models of Tweezer Type LCR and ESR meters.

The new calibration fixture utilizes 14 known components within the LCR-Reader’s measurement range. When a device is connected to the fixture, the fixture will cycle through the components with the measurement values displayed on the LCR-Reader’s OLED display. These values can then be compared to the known values of the components.

This is the second calibration fixture to be created. The first fixture used a 2-wire connection, which worked well for older models of the Tweezer Type LCR-meters, but could not handle the full measurement range of the newer devices, namely lower values of capacitance and inductance, and higher values of resistance. This was due to a parasitic capacitance and resistance on the fixture’s circuit board.

The new model uses a 4-wire connection which is used in newer models of LCR-Reader and Tweezer Type LCR-meters. The 4-wire connection is less sensative to parasitcs on the fixture’s PCB and measures the ranges that the older fixture could not.

This new fixture, along with 4 randomly selected LCR-Readers, were sent to Navair Technologies in Toronto, Ontario, one of Canada’s leading calibration houses. Navair verified the fixture allowing Siborg to begin offering NIST Traceable Calibration Certificates for LCR-Reader.

“With verification from Navair, we can finally offer periodic traceable calibration for all our LCR-meters, but most importantly the LCR-Reader. The LCR-Reader was overlooked by companies that require their test equipment to be calibrated annually, but with this new fixture, we can offer certificates to these customers.” says Michael Obrecht, the Director of Research and Development at Siborg.

Since their debut in the early 2000′s, Tweezer Type LCR and ESR meters have become a leading alternative to testing and troubleshooting Surface Mount Technology with conventional bench type testers. The design set the tweezers apart from the beginning; the combination of a set of gold-plated tweezers as probes and a lightweight LCR-meter in a nearly pen-sized device that requires only one hand to operate. Unlike conventional testers that impede work by requiring set-up between measurements, LCR-Reader and Tweezer Type LCR-meters can determine the type of component and best test parameters before measuring with high accuracy. All measurement values, including the component type, test range, secondary values (such as the ESR), and measurement mode.

The LCR-Reader is a lower-cost alternative to the Tweezer Type LCR-meters. The LCR-Reader retails around $200 USD; this is made possible by removing some features found on the other Tweezer Type LCR-meters and using a fixed test signal level of 0.45Vrms.  When the four randomly selected devices were sent to Navair, it was believed that the accuracy was closer to 1%, but Navair showed it was closer to 0.5%.

Siborg is excited to be able to include NIST Traceable Calibration Certificates for the LCR-Reader. These certificates are available in the LCR-Reader Store when ordered along with a device (each sold seperately).