De-5000 High Accuracy Handheld LCR Meter with Tl-21 Tl-22

tl;dr Economical, easy to use and very accurate. The new inventory (March 2021) now ships with an English manual. However the unit does has its flaws.Problem #1: While I don't have any complaints about the device itself there is a major flaw. The 9V battery compartment does not have the traditional polarized connector. This makes it easy to insert the battery incorrectly and blow up the unit. The older models had a reverse sacrificial diode (mixed-signal fast switching SMD diode) across the battery terminal that would blow up if you reversed the battery this protecting the instrument itself. But this diode would bleed a reverse current of approx 2.5-5 uA even when the device was off and was the cause of all low battery life complaints. With the newer models they have removed this diode - allthough the diode place holder continues to be there. This improves the battery life significantly but can permanently damage your device if you accidentally reverse the polarity. I really wish that the manufacturers fix this design flaw. At the very least they can put the conventional 9v battery polarized connectors that prevent battery from being installed incorrectly.Problem #2: The official DC adapter is not readily available. Designed to use 3.5mm x 1.35mm connectors with the barrel length of 12mm with inside pin +ve and outside -ve 9v 650mA which is again unconventional. Official adapter costs an insane $40, which is almost 1/2 the price of what you pay for the device. For $120 DER should not cheap out on providing a generic power supply that would cost no more than $7 on Amazon. Problem #3: Adding a simple protective circuit on the measurement terminals against energelized capacitors will be welcome - although they will have to use extremely low inductance and low capacitance FETs to design that. Something like this will likely cause the cost to go up but nevertheless will be cheap insurance against the chips getting fried.Apart from these nits, the device by itself is absolutely fantastic. I have already used this for several projects it pays for itself. Used it to find bad capacitors and also compared it to measure inductance of several miniature Coilcraft SMD inductors with great accuracy. Having 4 frequencies to run the test against is really very useful. I am still giving this 5-stars.

UPDATED: Removed one star for the poor battery life when off. 1.75uA which equates to about 2 weeks before the battery will be dead. So you will need to install a switch somewhere or only use it with an AC adapter (not included).I have quite a few popular high-end Fluke and Brymen hand-held DMMs. I also have a few dedicated capacitance meters that have gotten plenty of good press in the popular blogs. But they all stink at measuring low pF capacitors and actually are kind of terrible at capacitance measurements in most areas. I also have the excellent HP/Agilent/Keysight 34401A but of course it cannot measure capacitance at all (with some other gear you could calculate it).I also have a home-built capacitance meter that spanks the big brands with regard to speed/accuracy/precision but is more of a bench meter.Recently I had the need to test some pF caps and again the only unit that did the job was the home-built so I figured it might be time to go shopping for something more portable and something to verify readings against. Research pointed to this DE-5000 as being a good choice and I agree 1000% with that sentiment.I pulled out some precision capacitors and found the DE-5000 to be shockingly accurate down to single digit pF values and it did agree with my custom bench unit to the last digit in almost every test (for example, a 100pF 0.5pF accuracy cap measured 100.3 on both).You also may know that the test frequency can be significant and this DE-5000 allows you to change that.The only tiny complaint is that it doesn't come with a carrying case, but I slightly forgive that since they may not know what accessories you have and the case would add significant cost mostly due to packaging and shipping/storage.I only briefly tried the other features of the meter and didn't have any thing to note there, although I will say I really only bought this for the capacitor features (LCR/ESR/etc.).Build quality is mid-range, plastic of course.Made in Taiwan.

I really like the flexibility of this meter, including being able to choose a wide range of stimulus frequencies. I did verify the Capacitance and Resistance measurements to high accuracy standards. The meter correctly indicated the value, within the specified tolerance of the standards (0.05%).Battery life is good. The people who are complaining about the battery getting hot have installed the battery backwards, which is possible. Just look at the markings in the unit carefully.

I've always wanted an LCR meter, and it used to be that a good one was expensive. A friend recommended this one to me. It works very well. It's fairly easy to use. The provided instruction booklet is not in English, but a PDF of the English language instructions was easy to find with a Google search.You can plug most leaded components directly into the meter, but the included accessories make it easier to use for both leaded and surface-mount components.

This thing is amazing. Worth every cent. I don't know about the battery use yet.

bought based on suggestion from others. Really like this one, far better than my 10 year old handheld it replaced.Adapters were included, which is a very nice touch. Recomended item and seller!

Did not come with US manual but can download one from Web.

Good priduct work on elect.