Why does nobody talk about how bad those cheap capacitor testers are?

I bought a $12 multimeter with capacitance mode off Amazon and it was reading 470µF caps as 300µF. Switched to a Peak Atlas and suddenly my power supply repairs actually worked first try. Am I the only one who wasted money on those junk testers?

2 comments

2 Comments

willow24425d agoMost Upvoted

Did you have the same bad luck with those cheap testers?

hart.parker25d ago

470 microfarads reading as 300? Thats a huge miss, like almost 40% off. Wait, did you check if your meter was zeroed first? I bought one of those $12 units and it would drift 50µF just from me breathing near it. My Peak Atlas was night and day different, but even that one took a few seconds to settle on the right value. Honestly, I'm shocked you got any working repairs out of it at all.