That $90 capacitor tester that just collects dust now

Last spring I grabbed a fancy capacitor tester off Amazon for about $90 because I thought it would speed up my TV board repairs. Turned out my old multimeter with the capacitance setting does the same job fine for 95% of what I fix. I used the fancy one maybe three times, and now it sits in my drawer next to the other impulse buys. The real kicker is it gave me a false reading on a bad cap in a Samsung power supply, sent me down a rabbit hole for two hours. I finally checked it with the multimeter and saw the ESR was way off, replaced it, and the TV fired right up. Anyone else own a specialty tool that ended up being a waste just because the basic one handled it okay? What do you actually regret buying for your bench?

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alex_taylor101mo ago

Two hours chasing a bad cap because a $90 tester lied to you? That would make me lose my mind. I had something close happen with one of those little Chinese ESR meters everyone raves about, the $30 blue case one. It swore a cap in an LG set was fine and I spent a whole evening poking around the standby circuit for nothing. Pulled the cap, dropped in a new one just to rule it out, and boom, back in business. My $40 multimeter has never once steered me wrong like that.

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