🔧 Smart Tweezers ST5-S: Advanced LCR Meter/ESR Meter with Extra Test Leads and Protective Pocket Case Review

The LRC ST5-S handheld meter has an accuracy/precision equivalent to much more expensive LRC laboratory instruments with one exception: the sample/sampling rate option. Very high quality instruments in this category support >10kHz, often up to 100kHz or 1000kHz, while the ST5-S only works up to 10kHz. However, this is not usually a problem unless you are measuring very small SMT capacitors and inductors. The OLED display is very sharp and crisp (you might need to put on a glass to see some…

Despite the high cost, the investment has already paid off by troubleshooting a complex board with many 0402 components. I am surprised at the accuracy, although I would like to get to 100kHz to better understand the component under test isolate from the rest of the network. Within minutes I found the faulty component. When I removed it from the board, I found that the excess flux was preventing it from sticking to the pad, partially exposing the trace. While other less expensive tools can…

In the equipment I'm servicing, a power supply lost its -15V part. The circuit board is crammed with components, half of which are unused, no documentation, no time to deal with them, just plug in spares. But when the seven worlds were lost, it got really frustrating. It seems that all elements are in order (transistors, stabilizers, microcircuits, capacitors). A tiny unmarked electrolytic capacitor from FLUKE read about 20uF (not bad, expected value for 47uF). Smart tweezers show the same…

Excellent product. It takes some time to get used to. The largest are tweezers. They are too long and easily bend up and down so the ends of the tweezers don't meet at exactly one point. If you want to take passives (especially small ones like 0402) off boards and measure their values, you have to be careful with this "defect". Before starting, clean the circuit board with flux cleaner to ensure good contact. For example, if you can't make good contact with the 0402 inductor, you'll have to…

I use it mainly when working on prototypes of control devices for industrial automation - the device works exactly as described, there have not been any glitches and breakdowns yet. Great help when repairing, populating or tweaking boards with small SMD components (those seemingly gold plated tabs included in the box sit easily on the 0402 footprint components and are generally of good quality - the "short" - resistance is less than 40 mΩ ) - this saves a lot of time compared to the frustrating

Update: Advance Devices contacted me and helped restore my tweezers, there is a problem with the processor that went into the version I had Hibernation changes (I suggested adding more see the manual for details or create a troubleshooting guide. They also sent me a new version of the tweezers which doesn't have this problem but has some other improvements. I'm back and working and use a new pair of tweezers. Many thanks to Advance Devices for the great service, no reservations. If anything…