Review: SMD Tweezer Meter Or Tweezer Probes For Your Multimeter? | Hackaday

Surprisingly, miniature electronic products have become so. Heaven knows what a veteran who started with electronic tubes must think about. It is a journey to change from solder label to SMD in a lifetime. Even the generation that began with discrete transistors has undergone an incredible transformation. But it’s true, SMD components

They are small, which presents a challenge when you solder them. Using a pair of standard test probes can hardly identify and measure the value of the chip component, so that it is impossible to write to it.

Happily, test equipment manufacturers have met the challenge and have produced various meters designed for SMD work, which are equipped with a pair of tweezers instead of test probes. When I look for one, I usually do things about Hackaday reviews. I looked at the low-end budget market and bought a cheap Chinese car for about 16 pounds (21 US dollars). And since I am browsing the tweezers, I cannot resist adding other items to the order. I found a pair of tweezers test probes for my multimeter. These probes cost me more than a pound (approximately $1.30) and can provide a useful comparison. Used to use SMD components

, Do you even need a dedicated meter?

So, what did the package I sent from Shenzhen bought at the right time? The product tested by the tweezers is anonymous, but the meter is packed in a blister pack with the manufacturer's name and model number on it. This seems to be a Chinese package, but some work on Google Translate shows that it is a

(

). Open the package and found that it contains CR2032 batteries, plus a Chinese warranty card and folding instructions in English. After installing the battery, the meter immediately enters the power-on state, so that the meter enters the scan mode, trying to identify the power at both ends of the battery.

You can fully understand the quality of such imported products through the stated quality. Those of BM8910 have pleasant surprises, most of which use decent English and show clear charts. According to the Google translation at the top, the device itself is about the size of a thick pen, yellow plastic with LCD display, a few buttons, and the Chinese for "Chip Resistor/Diode/Capacitor Smart Tester". It is located in the middle, one end slides down, exposing the tweezers themselves. The tweezers are insulated spring steel with pointed probes at both ends. The instructions claim that they are gold-plated, and I have to say that they don't look very golden to me. In addition, the overall quality and feel of its construction are good. Although the cost may not be high, it does not feel cheap.

Press the "function" button to turn it on, and then enter the automatic mode, in which it attempts to identify the components in the tweezers as resistors, capacitors or diodes and gives a reading. Press "Function" repeatedly to switch between the single auto range resistance, continuity, diode tester and capacitance modes. Press and hold this button to turn it off. The other button is the "Hold" button, which is convenient for keeping readings.

Therefore, after studying BM8910, I started to use various SMD circuit boards and modules around the workbench. It is easy to hold the part, although 0201 may require a little attention from you. In most cases, the instrument will correctly identify its function and value. It becomes a quick way to determine manufacturing quality because you will soon see which tolerance components are used for differences in their values. It’s worth noting that the continuity feature does not have the buzzer you might expect.

In general, most component measurements seem to be unaffected by their placement in the circuit. For example, an LED series resistor on the Arduino should read accurate readings. However, in the case where the RC network affects the perceived value of the entire component, you may hope that the readings it returns cannot be trusted as the value of the component. Generally, it seems to prefer to identify the resistance of any circuit it sees, and if it includes an inductor, it defaults to the DC resistance of the component.

What I want to say is that if you are looking for a less expensive SMD tweezers tester, SZBJ BM8910 is a good choice. But this review is not over yet, because I also bought those SMD tweezers test probes for my multimeter. What if you are 

Thrifty engineers, how do they deal with special instruments?

For a lot of money, it’s fair not to expect too much quality. These £1 wonderful features are functional tweezers with plastic handles. Its single flexibility is about 50 cm (1'6 inches) long and can be divided into two wires for 4 mm plugs for meter terminals. The tip of the tweezers is not as good as the tip of BM8910, but the electroplated spring steel of the tweezers itself. The operation is simple: plug it into the meter and you are ready to use it.

It is very easy to hold the SMD device, and to determine the resistance value again is very simple. The component network also has the same problem. Of course, you are limited by the range that can be measured by the meter function. Mine has no capacitance range, so I can only compare two resistance and diode tests, which are better on these two tests. However, it is very useful to be able to measure the voltage in the circuit while the device is energized, and I suspect this will eventually become the purpose of these probes.

Inexpensive SMD tweezers probes are not the highest quality tools you will get on the workbench, but they are so cheap that you can easily add them to your armory. They are really not as convenient as the special instruments used to measure the value of SMD components, but they do have all the functions of a multimeter, and the ability to measure voltage is extremely convenient. Buy a set and you will find them useful.

This review started by comparing two methods for measuring SMD devices on PCBs, and finally suggested buying two suitable options 

Cheap, if you have this requirement.

Frequent readers will occasionally comment on cheap imported tools and test equipment here, and will know

. In this case, ultra-low-cost probes are very useful, but surprisingly, the key to a successful cheap tool may be extremely simple.

"Heaven knows what old friends who started with tubes should think"

I'm not sure what heaven knows, but based on my experience, if you want (or don't want) to know what those old friends think about them, they will be happy to tell you! :-)

Yes, we are happy to tell you;~) Starting from the tube, not only the eight-pin octal... When my father had questions about the small fonts in the DigiKey catalog, I used to laugh at him. No longer... now, I wear reading glasses myself. When doing serious SMD work, I did use a very good stereo microscope, when we reached 0402...well, I would rather do it myself without drinking caffeine in a few days. Or not at all, I have never really used a good Metcal soldering station, "oscilloscope" and some good tweezers for debugging. Although I have a very good USB microscope, it is not in the same field as true stereo high-quality optics.

Fortunately (or not, depending on your prospects), unless you are going to make a real product, most things are now available on the breakout board, if you ever had to pay part of your salary for a week This seems to be low-cost on the CK722 transistor. So, for home automation and other junk like that, I just use these things-in this part of the chain, I rarely encounter signal quality/RF propagation issues most of the time, so it's good for me.

I even call the widespread availability of evaluation boards at a not too stupid price another revolution. Those have been priced, so only a large company makes engineers sit around and wait for payment to find them worthwhile. Now there are Adafruit and many other products...this is a new world.

"I even call the widespread availability of low-priced evaluation boards another revolution. Those have been priced, so only a large company has engineers sitting around and waiting for payment to find them worthy. Now there are Adafruit and many others. Products...this is a new world."

Yes I remember when Motorola released the evaluation kit for 6811, they only charged $68.11! Unfortunately, I think they only made/sold 68 (sarcasm) because I didn't find them until they disappeared.

There are also STM development boards...because of their low-cost development boards and the free seminars held with these development boards, I am now a big fan of them!

You should have seen some development kits from TI. The price of DSP cpu is 15 dollars, but the price of development board is 500 dollars, and for compilers, etc., its price exceeds DevStudio.

I happened to have a contact person there, and I got a lot of objections about it-pointed out that if the university courses cannot afford

For students, these things, guess whose parts will not be designed when these guys find a real job?

Managed to bring the price of the basic kit to less than $100, and provided a free assembler and a widely pirated (wink.. thanks Keith/Brian) C compiler...

Does one want to know what some of them think? FPGA has just joined the affordable stuff club, and I still have no real impression.

Of course, as a consultant, all this is a long-standing problem, because the person who provides these things wants to know *my quantity* or *my gross* or *my employees*, and is close to these numbers It detonated me at 1 o'clock.

Of course, they just give these things to big men for free, so I started buying all my toys through customers who "know". We need to play them with things that have not yet entered the design stage to keep up.

But it is foolish to think that your tools (such as software) department should be a profit center. Should I pay $10,000 for your "privilege" design? true?

FWIW, I have some cheap tweezers, they are very suitable for my work. I often use them with the diode function in the ohmmeter to test LEDs very quickly and simply, which is much easier than the usual test probes.

"But it is foolish to think that your tool (such as software) department should be considered a profit center. Should I pay $10,000 for the "privilege" you design? Really?"

Yes, I remember that T-shirts with fashionable slogans were still in their infancy (early 1970s). Coca-Cola sold T-shirts with logos at about 5 times the price of ordinary T-shirts.

"Wait a minute. Do you want me to be a walking billboard for your products?"

Is this an interaction with Keith/Brian in the early 90s? I think I know what Keith you are talking about.

There is no answer link under Todd’s question, but yes, your schedule is correct. Keith likes archery as a check. Brian works in sales in the DC area. Keith, well, further south.

Thank you Arduino for the affordable evaluation board. When all these kids showed up in the EE department and wanted to do everything with Atmel chips, they frightened other suppliers. The MSP430 LaunchPads priced at $4.30 indicate that TI has received the news.

Now, if someone disagrees with the project team’s choice, they have the ability to buy an evaluation kit with their own money, and spend a little personal time, if something goes wrong, they can fish the project out of the frying pan. All parties involved have achieved great victories.

Don't joke about small fonts and parts. I have at least 5 pairs of "headwear" goggles scattered around the house and in different shops. And a lot of light.

By the way, I came up with a great old fart trick to shine on cheap products. Those plastic E27 lamp holders, you can buy on popular auction sites under $5 for less than $5, and there are 40 boxes of 9W LED lights from a popular dollar store and they will be shipped to your local for free store. Screw the socket 10 to 2×4, wire them into a bus shape, and then fix it like a fluorescent lamp. Add another 10 watts (90 vs. 80), but the light is much more, even at a temperature below zero, it will immediately light up, and they may suffer some abuse, that is, you can smash things in and Will not pop up.

Gosh, I still remember the first transistor CK722 I played. I think this is part of Raytheon. They are packed in small boxes like peanut tubes.

Using tweezers probes (as opposed to tweezers tables), longer wires (the length of which is not mentioned) will add additional stray capacitance, resistance and RF reception.

I am a little surprised that any of your "DVMs" do not have a capacitor function.

Nice tool, but it can determine whether the capacitor involved is X7R or Y4Z or something else?

Haha, no. How does it work?

I think this must measure the RF Q and impedance,

Like-antenna analyzer? What radio frequency range are we talking about?

For American users, Mastech MS8910 is almost identical and can be purchased in China:

Totally worth the money. Their job is exactly the same as advertising. The only drawback I found is that the gold-plated nibs (including the second set of nibs) are not very sharp and are not well arranged. Measuring small SMT passive components requires additional flexibility.

Thinking of asking for one... but men, they lost me because they couldn't measure the voltage. Measuring the voltage across the decoupling capacitor will be a great thing.

I totally agree with Jenny's comment on "che-cheapos". They are cr-pin tweezers-made of stamped metal and curved materials, but if you don't have a pair of SMD tweezers, they are definitely better than none, and they cost almost nothing. I rarely use them, but I do use them. If you don't have a better one, then buy these.

Maybe the quality of BM8910 is higher than it looks, maybe the nibs that are not very golden are plated with platinum, this is a sure sign of quality and elegance :)

I played with that gadget, but decided to object. :)

A more expensive suit can be obtained. that is really good. Yes, I started using through holes and now use 0402 and 0201.

I was surprised at the range that can be measured using a single CR2032 as a measurement power supply and feed voltage.

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