TSP #73 - Teardown and Repair of a Fluke PM6303A Automatic RCL Meter

[@gamccoy]

I never really considered how an LCR meter measures phase. Thank you for the explanation.

[@ixamraxi]

I always love your repair videos, they are some of my favorite videos on youtube; the production quality is great, and the methodology used is consistent, logical and often surprisingly understandable. I always learn something when I watch your videos and I just want to thank you for that.

[@PapasDino]

My better half is always chiding me about having so many varied components on hand but sure pays off on a Sunday afternoon when you're deep into something and need a part! But I just checked my zener box and of 15 different values there were no 4.7V's there; must be a rare one! Great repair as usual and a wonderful way to pass the time while snowed in with the East Coast of the U.S. in the midst of a huge storm.

[@johnnymartini1072]

You are part of my motivation to study electronic engineering

[@Thesignalpath]

+uran0s - Thank you.

[@somebody301]

Same for me!

[@TheRadioShop]

Great repair as always. You really have the way of showing how things work.

[@RONWOLPA]

Meticulously diagnosed , sometimes watching your videos makes me miss the time I worked as electronic engineer. I quit electronic many years ago.

[@thomasboos2470]

Again thumbs up, I enjoy your repair videos, its possible to learn a lot and see how you track down the faults. Absolute great!!! And your video quality is one of the best, not moving to much and most of the time showing the relevant picture. I am waiting for the next :)

[@hamandwine]

Nice work! But especially thank you for uploading the manuals as these are really good for learning and building your own LCR meter. To bad that those really educative and detailed manuals are getting so rare on modern test equipment. Well, at least on affordable equipment :)

[@javierpallalorden]

Hi Shahriar, excellent video and nice to see that a fluke 289 fits nicely inside the free space of the case (15:40).

[@octavmandru9219]

Thank you for educating us. I never thought one could series zenner with another diode to sum the voltage. Thanks!

[@dieboodskapper]

I ABSOLUTELY LOVE YOUR VIDEOS ON RF STUFF......CANT WAIT FOR THE NEXT!!!!

[@notionSunday]

Enjoyed watching this repair. Always nice to see Pooch too.

[@xDevscom_EE]

Shahriar on fire, love new timeframe for SP videos :) Cat's approved! +1 for schematics, would be happy to add into collection, with PM6304 one I already have, which is bit different.

[@jasonmichaeljones]

Keep the repair videos coming. Cant believe that people thumb down your videos.. I am going to go through all the ones i watched and make sure that they are thumbed up! :)

[@Thesignalpath]

Thanks!

[@SeanBZA]

I used one to test 4k of capacitors that had been in storage for 3 decades. 99% plus passed perfectly, pretty good for the 10uF 25V wet tantalum slugs. Many were detected as pure capacitors as well, leakage below the instrument measuring range ( or below the detector noise floor), and I did do a before and after test on some after 24 hours of bias with no difference. The unit was the Phillips version, in the brown and black case, but otherwise identical. Saved myself a lot of heartache in testing components that were NOS before installing DOA ones. Plus was good to use as a transformer tester as well to find shorted turns, using a known good one to get the values.

[@JackZimmermann]

Great video as usual. I really enjoy your repair videos. Being a newbie at electronics it's great to see the approach to finding the faults of the unit. Keep the videos coming!

[@voltlog]

Excellent repair video and nice addition to your lab

[@ecotechnz]

This is a good illustration of repair techniques: qather data, carry out inspection, propose a fault scenario, etc. One point though, if a diode is shorted you do not have to check it in both directions. A shorted diode is no longer a diode.

[@stevepoppe8433]

Envious that you seem always to find failed gear that is (relatively) easy to diagnose and repair ... no obsolete parts, custom-made ICs, bad firmware, parts that have only OEM part numbers and no common part numbers (e.g. vintage HP). Nice job tho and I learn much from your videos.

[@tino116nb]

Great video! If you have some time, could you create a short video of how to properly make the 4 wire leads with the kelvin clips? I always think it would be nice to make my own leads, but I am worried I will introduce errors in my measurements if I mess something up. Thank you for all the hard work you put on this videos!

[@adilmalik7066]

shahriar ive just started my EEE degree and your my inspiration! thanks for the vids :))

[@Thesignalpath]

Thank you!

[@wb8vqv]

I really enjoy the test equipment repair videos. Have you ever thought of making a lab tour video?Thanks,Dave

[@mikebarton9324]

thanks for all the work in making these videos i really enjoy them

[@superdau]

Poor Zeners. They always have to take one for the team! Do they always fail short circuit? I guess they have to to do their "protective" work, but is that a given? But they really work. I stupidly connected a harddisk I got to "save" data from (it hung quite often, while making a clicking sound) with 5 and 12V switched around (I swapped the pins on a connector so I could run fans on 5V instead of 12, but forgotten that that one line was "fan only" after 5 years). The HD controller board sizzled while a Zener acted as crowbar and two small inductors (guessing, they weren't there anymore ;) ) acted as fuses (and burned a hole into the PCB). The same way as here, I followed the traces and checked which parts could have been damaged. After removing the charred hole and filling it with superglue, I bridged the inductors and removed the Zener. I managed to get all data from the disk. In the end it had around 100 unrepairable blocks (down from a thousand, but the recovery program managed to get most of them after many tries). Pretty sure the bad blocks were there even before my stupidity. Even though I didn't know where the bad blocks were, I made an image to a new HD, which is running fine now (so looks like it didn't hit any important OS files, if the bad blocks were in files at all).

[@ChrisWilson5006]

Another great video, you have a real gift for explaining technical subjects, and I have to guess you owe this to your parents or teachers earlier in life, someone certainly taught you how to make a point succinctly, yet interestingly and with sufficient information therein :) I have one of these testers, badged as a Philpips,, and although I haven't broken it yet it was fascinating to get a clear insight into how it works. I once asked Fluke for a price for the little component testing clip that will plug into the banana sockets and allow testing leaded components without the test leads. The price was simply ludicrous, but they insisted it was correct... If you have the time and inclination I would like to know more about how you might perhaps do the maths or whatever to convert inductive measurements at 1khz into what they might be at higher or lower frequencies. Many thanks, I am always in happy anticipation of your next video!

[@thekaduu]

Your videos are awesome! Thank you for your time...

[@berni8k]

No wonder it blew up, the beginning clearly shows its only CAT I rated.

[@jwrtiger]

+berni8k Love your comment...lol.

[@pirateman1966]

+berni8k nice one.

[@koffibanan3099]

Thank you for another clear and informative video! I really love your channel!

[@HenriTroberg]

Yet another great video! Very informative.

[@neuralnetwork653]

Shahriar, can you put a link to the schematic for this puppy? And thank you for another cool and professionally done video!

[@glenwoofit]

Very interesting video as always.

[@IsettasRock]

Who doesn't keep a 4.7v zener on hand? Good job on following through with the logical path of repair!

[@TheDigitalAura]

So educational. Love your videos. Thanks.

[@pirateman1966]

Salam Shahriar, I bought 5 APC RS-800 UPS's for $25 knowing they don't work properly, and plan to repair them for my lab. I found the schematic online by googling it, and was wondering if you would be interested in doing a video on how they work and how to fix them. I've never worked on uninterruptible power supplies, and am too lazy to spend hours analyzing the schematic to find out how this one works. Looking at another make and model, I noticed that share pretty much everything. I Found your excellent channel when I sub'd to Peter Oak's channel. It was an excellent find. Excellent work. Merci O, khodafez :)

[@WisdomVendor1]

Very enjoyable vid. Thanks

[@edwinhowardarmstrong7661]

Your videos are very enjoyable and educational. Love your cat - is its name "pooch"?

[@grantfullen9559]

Great repair......

[@AureliusR]

Shahriar, a couple of the segments are backwards. We check the supply before discussing checking the supplies!

[@dwDragon88]

+Aurelius R The 'checking the supply' clip, and the one before it both segue into checking the schematic. I think he spliced them together in the best way possible.

[@AureliusR]

dwDragon88 right, but in the previous clip he said we were going to check the schematic first.

[@drorwald2656]

great video. can you explain more about measuring capacitors and inductors at different frequency? thanks.

[@Thesignalpath]

+Dror Wald You can measure it at the desired frequency by applying the incident desired frequency. In this case, it is measured at 1kHz.

[@zinahe]

Hi, thanks for sharing. I like your repair videos very much. I was wondering what kind of wires/cables you used along with the 4 wire Kelvin clips. Cheers.

[@dooces1]

Great vid, more repair videos please!

[@johnas2004]

Great video, well done with the fix. Does the PM6603A have a trim control? You should be able to get much closer to 0pF with no component connected.

[@joshbassett]

So logical, thanks for the video.

[@jaywalt1311]

Love the repair videos!!! The cat is cute but that would drive me nuts cause they cant stay on the ground! Its cute though =) Guess I'm just a dog person. Keep the repair video coming and I don't mind the cat, kinda like your helper.. =)

[@Thesignalpath]

+Jay Walt He is the assistant. Unfortunately he steals all the q-tips and hides them under the couch.

[@kissingfrogs]

+The Signal Path Blog You may want to check for 4.7v zeners under the couch with the q-tips. Great video Shahriar. Thanks.

[@carlraymer901]

Awesome video, thanks i learnt a lot. Could you advise what a fair price would be for a Fluke PM 6304 LCR meter? Would it be possible to get the circuit diagrams for the 6304 should it go faulty?

[@KD0CAC]

Dang , another tool to go looking for ;) Thanks again

[@idooggoodi]

Hi Shahryar The signal Path Blog, Could you please make a video about PCB filters ? and how to design them. thank you

[@kentvandervelden]

Thumbs up for the kitty

[@radioham2387]

Hi Shahriar thanks for the video(very informative) can I ask you could you do a lecture on rf stripline design please ?

[@douglasRbrown]

MEOW!!! your pissing the cat off for being in its space

[@largepimping]

21:43 - feel the ZENER RAGE!

[@alexsandermagalhaes9266]

Im just watching because of the cat :3

[@Jimmeh_B]

4 yrs late, I clicked purely because I fully expected to see the cat jump into the chassis as soon as he took the lid off. I wonder if he still has Signal Kitty?

[@thewyliestcoyote]

The layout of the of main board seems a little low density. I am surprised that they do not may this instrument half width. Additionally I am impressed with how simple the instruments is.

[@EngineerNick]

So cool thanks for the video :)

[@yoramstein]

Can you explain why the need of biasing a capacitor in certain cituations?

[@witeshade]

I wonder, it seems like a really obvious potential user error to hook it up to a component that was still charged, so is there no other way they could protect the components or provide some kind of safe discharge path? As you said, the zeners seem to have part of that job, protecting most of the rest of the components, but blowing half a dozen components all across the front-end seems pretty catastrophic. Or would it be that any component that could protect the circuit more, would interfere with the ability of the circuit to perform the measurements it is supposed to?

[@Thesignalpath]

+Daniel G Some LCR meters first detect the presence of voltage and provide a dedicated discharge path. Of course this makes the front-end more complicated.

[@AureliusR]

+The Signal Path Blog Can you please add a link to the service manual? I've been desperately trying to find a copy of it online, no luck so far.

[@simonfitch1120]

Why does moving the ferrite core OUT of the coil increase its inductance? I would have expected the inductance to drop, yet it didn't.

[@bradputt]

nice cat!

[@Thesignalpath]

+flye flye He says "Prrrr".

[@theawt]

I love your video and your channel. But I have to admit that this time I clicked on the video just because a cat was there. Hi pooch!

[@czorgormez]

this pcb is clearly from 80's. all the routing is look like handmade without computer. probably with stickers. we called them letraset. which is actually name of the company produces that stickers for electronic design. also i beleive there is a solder under the green mask which is also very common in through hole plated pcbs in 80's.

[@d942yd42]

They gave their life ...

[@PeterWalkerHP16c]

'The Zeners gave their life' ...

[@GeorgeGeorge-xj2bc]

Desoldering on double sided pcb is much harder than simply locate only the faulty components.

[@IsettasRock]

Hint - Never use a LCR bridge as a voltmeter

[@rapsod1911]

Is there any link for direct service manual download?

[@FooBar89]

should it be LCR? :)

[@GJackie24]

Love the Kitty

[@DerAlbi]

Why does the Inductance increase when you remove the ferrite? Thats counter intuitive to other inductors :-/

[@pauldeboer]

+DerAlbi Exactly what I was thinking, we need an explanation here :-)

[@Thesignalpath]

+DerAlbi You are correct. The instrument shows the reverse behavior. This is because it was put into the parallel L/R mode with a dominant component pointing to R (by mistake). I have added a note to the video as well. Thanks!

[@DerAlbi]

+The Signal Path Blog Thx, of course the formulas change then :-) Nice trap. I was first thinkng that the ferrite core would cause eddy currents so it would decrease inductance when its deep inside the coil. However this method of tuning wouldnt make sense for LC-based receivers (which i supose the inductor is made for) due to bad Q. thx for the video and response :-) aaand for the cat. i need more cat in your videos. awwwww

[@AlexeiPolkhanov]

It only goes up to 1 kHz?

[@ohmedarick1]

That is exactly what I was thinking

[@douro20]

The PM means it's a Philips instrument...

[@lmamakos]

Definitive confirmation that when you let the magic smoke out, it stops working.

[@gacherumburu9958]

👍👍

[@Pieh0]

1:30 Your Dave Jones impersonation is awful :P

[@stonail665]

+Pieh0 I don't see any impersonation. probably you watched a lot of EEVblog and it affects your brain. take a break, you will be fine.

[@electronicatutorial]

+Pieh0 Also at 3:41.

[@AmirHakimiRezaei]

#ZenerLivesMatter

[@justrandom7214]

If somebody has a spare LCD screen for one of these, I would be really intrested. In the meanwhile I have to use it with my hacked on LCD... :(

[@hitechespresso]

TERRIFIC AS USUAL! thanks!

[@johannfr]

I'd get rid of those banana females and replace them with proper sized ones. :)

[@Thesignalpath]

+Jóhann Friðriksson The plugs are TINY. I was so surprised when I got the connectors from digikey. They are cute though! :)

[@smallick653]

That cat is a male or female

[@Thesignalpath]

He is male.