In my experiance it depends very much on the type of inductor & its losses.
For air cored RF types, a known Cap and a dip meter or some other form of
resonance test seemd to work best.
For large iron cored types at low frequency a voltage/current phase
measurement has been more successful - particularly if the Q is low.

An LCR meter can give you a good quick (and sometimes rough) indication
also!

You also may need to make sure that it is measured as close to the actual
operating frequency & drive level (including any DC) as possible to
minimise errors due to skin effect, core loss, saturation etc. This can
increase the measurement difficulties significantly.


Richard P





                    James R Albers
                    <n9cyl@JUNO.CO        To:     PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU
                    M>                    cc:
                    Sent by: pic          Subject:     Re: [EE]: measuring inductance
                    microcontrolle
                    r discussion
                    list
                    <PICLIST@MITVM
                    A.MIT.EDU>


                    31/05/01 15:06
                    Please respond
                    to pic
                    microcontrolle
                    r discussion
                    list






Hello Andy,

I connect the unknown inductor across a known capacitor.  Then I take my
dip meter and dip the parallel LC circuit that I have made.  Then I read
the frequency off of my dip meter, and plug this number into the standard
formula for resonance.  This only works well up to about 150 MHz.

Of course, if you're an engineer, you'll want to use a computer model.

73,

Jim Albers N9CYL

--
http://www.piclist.com#nomail Going offline? Don't AutoReply us!
email listserv@mitvma.mit.edu with SET PICList DIGEST in the body

--
http://www.piclist.com hint: To leave the PICList
mailto:piclist-unsubscribe-request@mitvma.mit.edu