Siborg – Smart tweezers feature innovative LCR-meter for SMD troubleshooting

Siborg Systems has released its latest LCR-meter, the Smart Tweezers ST5 are designed to make evaluating surface-mount devices simpler.

Surface-mount components are generally very small, and sometimes have wire leads. These tiny pieces are very hard to label, thus, are often hard to keep track of and their values may be forgotten. Smart Tweezers offers the solution to these problems. Lightweight, and easily held and controlled with one hand, Smart Tweezers can be used to quickly evaluate all passive types of SMT components, such as capacitances, inductors and resistors.

Smart Tweezers combine an LCR-meter with a pair of high-precision tweezers, using the tines as the probe. The device was designed for production line component evaluation, on-board impedance testing, and SMD component sorting. By being able to automatically detect the type of component being tested and measurement mode (R, C and L), it saves time and is therefore cost effective. Also by automatically selecting the best test ranges, the user is able to focus primarily on the task at hand.

The LCR-meter in the unit automatically determines the type of component under evaluation (resistor, capacitor or inductor), and switches to the proper range and signal frequency for the highest accuracy readings. Smart Tweezers has a small LCD screen fitted into the handle of the device to relay the measurement values to the user as well as displaying the component type and test conditions used, says the company.

“The main advantage of Smart Tweezers is virtually instantaneous and highly accurate evaluation of SMT components as small as 0.3mm,” said Michael Obrecht, R&D director, Siborg. “This accuracy level of about 0.2% is only available from expensive bench-type LCR-meters that require significant efforts in setting-up the measurements.”