Handheld LCR Meter Digital Bridge Capacitance Inductance Resistance Multimeter Tester ESR Calibration with USB Super Capacitor (4082)

My cheapo resonance based LC meter started acting up, so after looking around at the various offerings I pulled the trigger on the $120 RuoShui 4080 LCR meter. I bought this meter to measure very small capacitances and it seems to resolve well to sub 1pF. Also to measure inductances in the range 1mH to 50mH, and it does that well too.Some observations after having used it for a bit:- I really like the internal lithium battery + USB-C charging and wish my DMM had this instead of a leaky 9V. When charging the screen shows "In Charging (200mA)" plus the battery level icon. It would be nice if it displayed the charge level % numerically plus an ETA to full, but I suppose the icon is sufficient. It appears you can use the meter while it is charging.- I suppose I prefer this hand held form factor over a bench type instrument.- It comes with short alligator clip test leads which have the typically too slippery inside vinyl boots, which makes opening the jaws more of a challenge than it should be.- The screen fonts are a nice looking and clear sans-serif, some images show this as ugly serif.- The screen info is somewhat more extensive and arranged somewhat differently than the images show.- Pressing the "SET" button takes you to a single page that shows the Model, Serial, and software version. Here you can set the language (Chinese | English), AutoOff (OFF | 5 | 15 | 30 | 60 min), Bright (backlight in 20% increments), PowerOn (Last | Default), Beep (Off | Key+Notice | Only Notice), Colors (White | Yellow | Cyan | Coral) - Yellow is almost unreadable, Cyan and Coral seem useful, I prefer White.- Included is a shorting bar for calibration. You stick it in and a long press of the "NULL" button starts the "Short" calibration, which takes about 45 seconds. You remove it and a second long press starts the "Open" calibration, which also takes about 45 seconds. A countdown from 10 to 0 on the screen shows the progress. The meter automatically senses the shorting bar's presence or absence, so you can do the calibration in either order. It would be nice if there were a way to somehow storing the shorting bar in the meter, I worry about misplacing it.- Since the calibration takes a while to do, I was hoping it would be preserved through a power cycle. It seems if you do SET | PowerOn | Last then it will be preserved along with all of your other test settings, otherwise you're starting over every time. Of course you'll want to re-calibrate if you switch between the direct insertion slots and any test leads.- The direct insertion slots are actually 4-wire: the drive is on the bottom metal lip and the sense is on the top metal lip, and inserting a component lead shorts them together.- You can buy inexpensive shielded 4-wire "Kelvin" test leads, but I think I'll be OK with the direct insertion slots and the short 2-wire leads that were provided with the meter.- The LCR mode can be selected as AUTO, during which the meter tries to figure out what type (L | C | R) the component is. Auto mode switching can be fooled if the test frequency is too low (e.g. it can confuse a larger inductor for a resistor) or too high (e.g. it can confuse a 10meg resistor for a capacitor).- The modes have "Series" and "Parallel" sub modes which are selected with the AUTO/SER/PAL" button. For inductance series mode seems most useful as the inductance value stays fairly constant with test frequency. For resistance parallel mode seems most useful / constant. For capacitance this doesn't seem to matter?- The FREQ (100 | 120 | 1k | 10k | 40k | 100k Hz) selects the test sine frequency. Going to 100kHz is more of a premium feature, and allows you to see how components behave over a more extended range.- For the RANGE, "AUTO" seems to work the best in most cases. For some reason the range display uses the Ohm symbol regardless of what is being measured.- Pressing the HOLD button instantly freezes the displayed values, a long press shows running min, max, and average values at the bottom of the screen.- You can use the up/down/left/right arrow buttons to select and change most of the measurement settings. A bit confusingly, up/down are used to select, left/right are used to dec/inc the selected value.- I couldn't find a use for the ENTER key?- Pressing the NULL button offsets the displayed values and shows a delta icon on the screen, a long press initiates the calibration procedure.- The SPEED (FAST | MED | SLOW) button controls screen updating and presumably trades response time for averaging time, so slower should give more consistent measurements.- The LEVEL (300 | 600 | 1000 mV) button sets the RMS (1000mV = 2.5Vpp confirmed with my scope) test voltage, I suppose this should be set to max for the best SNR if not doing in-circuit testing.- For some reason there is no BIAS button (though there is a suspicious gap on the front panel here) but you can reach the setting via the arrow keys which introduces a DC bias (0 | 100 | 300 | 600 mV) on the test leads.- There is a dedicated capacitor button for electrolytics. This sets the level to a fixed 600mV RMS and the offset to 1V, so the lowest part of the test sine wave is a bit above ground.- Pressing the X/D/Q/theta/ESR button selects the secondary measurement below the main measurement. ESR is probably the most useful, and I believe D is simply the inverse of Q. I suppose one could compare differently constructed components of the same value to see which might have a higher Q, but D, Q, and theta aren't otherwise very meaningful without a continuously variable test frequency and knowing the SRF.- The manual seems more useful than most, with charts and tables showing the accuracy of the various measurements and modes. I didn't mess with any of the data logging features nor the included software.- If I could redesign the user interface, I'd make the two columns of buttons align and correspond with the two columns of display data - as it is you have to hunt around for the correct button to press because the orderings are quite different, so I tend to stick to the arrow keys for navigation. And I'd give it a dedicated BIAS button. But this is nit-picking, I'm quite happy with it the way it is, and it's a good value.[EDIT] This kahanka Hard Travel Case fits it like a glove (see my picture): https://www.amazon.com/dp/B082B2V921[EDIT2] There is a thin protecting film of easily scratched frosted plastic over the screen. It can be fairly difficult to remove because there's no pull tab or anything to grab onto - my fingernail wouldn't do it, so I ended up very, very carefully using the tip of a box cutter blade at one of the corners to start it. The screen is noticeably clearer and brighter with it removed.

If your a hobbyists be prepared to do some homework as this is a very powerful piece of test equipment. The down side are the instructions are inadequate for the average hobbyist. Example, the instructions do not include enough information to calibrate the instrument. You’ll have to go elsewhere. The upside is the accuracy and overall capability of the instrument. If you want quick and simple get a PEAK or other less capable “tester”. If you’re willing to do a little work and want to learn a lot more about electronics this is the reasonable priced ESR for you. It has a built in lithium battery and a type C charging port, features not found on all of the competition. I would buy this again

I have held off for a very, very long time to buy a meter that would test capacitor is not only for ESR but also for dissipation factor and obviously Q.After doing a lot of research, I saw that there were good reviews for this and also the company seem pretty solid in that they offer quite a bit of instruments above. This price is always a good sign.Anyway, I received this meter and I was immediately impressed with not only its accuracy, but with its ease of use, and also with all of the features. It also compares very accurately with my HP RLC bridge.One of the hallmarks of an instrument that has a lot of resolution is that of repeatability. There are some instruments out there that will give you a bunch of digits, but taking several readings will all be different making that resolution completely worthless. This meter, is very repeatable.I did, however, bought an auxiliary set of Kelvin clips. This makes testing cap pastors, much more easy and connecting to them so I highly recommend just simply buying them.I am totally happy with this meter and I am also a very picky person for test instrumentation.I also think you’ll be very happy with this meter as well; to me worth every penny!

It was working fine for a few days, then started locking up when attempting to perform a NULL using any length of wire longer than the test leads.. It wouldn't respond to any buttons - including the power button. I had to detach the battery to re-set it.

I have had several other LCR meters and they are all pretty good. The points that stand out for me on this one areExcellent display.0,001-ohm resolution and accurateExternal data logging program and cable includedCalibration and Null functionsRechargeable batteries via a type C connectorAll this and the price make it a great deal

I used this LCR meter to measure capacitance and ESR (Equivalent Series Resistance) of a very custom variable capacitor, inductance of a superconducting coil, and a lot of other fun components.The measurements are very consistent; it is extremely useful to have measurement frequency selectable in the range from 100Hz to 100kHz.As for the flaws - the ESR measurements in the range of several Ohms are not very reliable (which applies to all handheld LCR meters including those 10x in price), and the interface is not very intuitive. Of course, the instructions are machine-translated from Chinese and useless - but that's to be expected.

Great Addition to my husband tools and gadgets he uses at work and on our home. Easy to set up comes with charger and great instructions. Worth the money.

Very happy with my meter. Battery life is pretty good. Accuracy seems pretty good also. If you get this meter then be sure to also get the Kelvin Clip lead. It is definitely worth it.