Circuitrocks

Restoring vintage gear, dami dried-out electrolytics. Regular multimeter capacitance mode reads value fine pero cap still bad in circuit. Why?

Answer: ESR (equivalent series resistance). A cap can read 100uF correctly but have high ESR = useless for filtering.

Cheap ESR meters:

• MESR-100 (~PHP 1800): dedicated, in-circuit testing
• Transistor tester TC1 clones (~PHP 500): measures ESR + a lot more, less precise

For anyone doing recap work: capacitance value alone lies. ESR tells the truth. Sino gumagamit ng TC1 clone? Accurate ba enough for hobby recap?