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On Saturday, October 20, 2012 9:46:01 AM UTC-4, Bruce Esquibel wrote:

I actually bought it for the inductor tests, figuring out what unmarked

coils and chokes were, later for the cap tests. It may have "found" a couple

electrolytics borderline bad that another meter would of missed, but I never

considered that thing worth the asking price.

I bought mine new in 1985, and I thought then and still believe today that it was a pretty good value. At the time, I was actually looking for a good Sprague TelOhmike before deciding to buy the LC75. Back then, there was no internet, so finding one (in any kind of shape) was a matter of luck. Today you can search and have it in a couple days.

Sony TVs of the 70s and 80s would have a dozen bad electrolytics at one shot, and the LC75 cut down the time to go through these considerably. The great thing about the LC75 is that it not only accurately read ESR, but by running the rated voltage through them and then remeasuring the cap, you'd see a lot of caps drop in value by a third or more, where the ESR actually improved. This alone caught a lot of caps that an ESR meter alone would miss.. Of course, the ringer and inductance readings were handy as well.


it actually came with a spring-loaded "stick", you used that to hold a

button down by placing it between the handle and button. Was used to

"reform" capacitors, which I don't think really worked in the first place..

I mean really, even for a 80's design, they couldn't come up with some kind

of mechanical button lock? A stick? For a $1000 meter?


I was never crazy about reforming caps and only did so in an emergency, but that spring loaded stick was probably an afterthought after the unit was ready for production. It did cost me once though. Trying to save a bit more time, I had the stick hold down the ESR button (defeating the discharge feature), and was running through a bunch of caps, when one delivered a nice whack to the Z meter. It suddenly read zero ESR for everything. Fortunately, Sencore shipped the meter with a full schematic. I don't remember what IC it was exactly, but it was some sort of an off the shelf 14 pin gate. Other than that mishap, and having to clean the BNC connector where the fuse goes periodically, it's been rock solid and trouble free, and it's been in daily use from new.