This Open Source SoloPCB projects from Electro-labs.com shows how to build a capacitance meter for your home lab.
We are building another opensource SoloPCB project which is very enjoyable to build and use. In our electronics works, we frequently need to know the actual value of a capacitor. As you know, small sized SMD capacitors have no markings showing their values. Or there are lots of fake electrolytic capacitors which are rated much lower than their stated values. Sometimes the capacitors have large tolerances and we want to choose the best fit for our circuit. What we need is an accurate capacitance meter.
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This is a capacitance meter which can measure capacitors rated from picofarads to millifarads. The principle of operation is simple. Just apply voltage to the capacitor and measure the elapsed time to charge it. The circuit is based on Atmega328P and it is Arduino IDE compatible. It includes the voltage regulators which output 5V and 3.3V from 9V input. A Nokia 5110 LCD is used to display the measured information. Thanks to the 4mm banana jacks, various kinds of probes can be used such as SMD probe, crocodile probe etc.
DIY Capacitance Meter – [Link]
