Measuring crap

Silver1omo

At the beginning of summer break, we visited Mexico and got a chance to pickup a couple things from my house (anyone interested in buying a house in MX?).
Among the things I picked, I grabbed my old DATS and today decided to check it and compare measuring caps and resistors with it, my fluke 115 and LIMP using the onboard audio of my old laptop.
I can't get a clean line with shorted leads in DATS...
OK, let's ignore it for now and see what it looks like. Audiophiler cap marked as 8uf +- 3%
Fluke 115 says it is dead on 8uf
LIMP:

DATS:

Measured a couple other caps and the DATS measured lower capacitance for all. Now I want an LCR even more.

DrewsBrews

@Silver1omo said:

I can't get a clean line with shorted leads in DATS...

That is likely the issue. It can't make a good calculation if it doesn't have clean input.
From memory, mine shows flat until past 10khz.

Other thing is it may not be the most accurate, but how precise is it? Does it show the same variance between caps of the same reported size when compared to other measuring devices? I typically am looking to match values so they give the same response in either channel, rather than the overall numbers. My ears don't care if the value matches the number printed on the side.

Silver1omo

Not the best consistency either, I'll stick with LIMP or the Fluke.

jhollander

You need a clean line, anything else is a indication that the USB port- driver is wrong for DATS. Fix the port-driver issue and you'll be fine.

PWRRYD

Ditto to what John said. I find my DATS to be very accurate and repeatable.

Silver1omo

Tried all the ports in the laptop and 2 on the desktop. Can't get clean lines.
Might try later again. It is annoying right now.

PWRRYD

Is your's the cheap plastic WT3 hardware? I had to pry mine apart and reflow a number of cold solder joints. After doing that and upgrading to DATS s/w my "Dayton" unit has been pretty solid.

jhollander

The software looks like DATS version3. I think PETT has some good instructions last time I looked. https://techtalk.parts-express.com/forum/tech-talk-forum/1487296-is-the-dats-v3-windows-11-stable

a4eaudio

Yes, I had DATS v2 and DATS v3 back then and found that v2 hardware with v2 software works well and v3 hardware with v3 software works well, but not if you use the different version hardware and software.

Silver1omo

Have an old DATS with no version printed in the box, the included CD has software v1. Tested both v1 and v3 SW. Both get fuzzy lines and bad cap measurings.

tktran

Incompatible software:

/paste:
“ The rolled off response would seem to indicate that the older hardware version (DATS V1/WT3) is selected at the Preferences setting (under the Edit menu). If you set it to DATS V2 I expect you will once again see a flat line response for resistor measurements.The image below shows the the preferences setting:

Best Regards,
John”

/end

Reference:
https://techtalk.parts-express.com/forum/tech-talk-forum/1487296-is-the-dats-v3-windows-11-stable?p=1487752#post1487752