Inductance and capacitance adapters for a digital voltmeter

The adapters have been built from the drawings in chapter 26 of the ARRL handbook for radio amateurs, 2000, using the ARRL PCB templates. They convert capacitance/inductance to mV to read on a digital voltmeter: Capacitance is in two ranges: 2.2-1000 pF or 1 – 2200 nF, and inductance in these two ranges: 3-500 uH and 0.1-7 mH. The projects can be found here.

Errata for the capacitance adapter:

• The PCB template is incorrect. There is a connection between pin 7 of U1 (ground) and the minus connection of the DVM that needs to be cut away. In the template, the trace from pin 7 going down for a few mm and then to the right should only go to the next hole where the strap is soldered. Then it should be cut, and not be allowed to connect to the junction of the parallel capacitors C5 and C7 (whose sum make up 0.2 uF).

Recommendation for the inductance adapter:

• There are sharp pulses in the supply voltage unless a couple of decoupling capacitors are added as in the capacitance adapter. The values are not critical, e. g.: 10 uF/10V on the 9V supply, and 1.5 uF/10 V on the 5V supply.