Capacitor ESR Measurement with Bode 100

This application note explains how to measure the characteristics of a capacitor with the impedance adapter B-WIC and the Bode 100.

 

Picture of Bode 100 with a DSL-Cable

The ESR of a capacitor can influence the behavior of an electronic system and therefore has to be known in several cases. Manufacturers do often not provide sufficient data about the ESR. Sometimes the dissipation factor is defined which can be connected to the ESR using the following relation:

Assuming a series equivalent circuit model for a capacitor including the capacitance and the series resistance the Bode 100 can directly measure both values over the full frequency range.

To see how easy the ESR measurement can be done with the Bode 100 and the B-WIC just download the application note: