ESR Meter Calibration Resistors

I built Jay_Diddy_B’s 5 Transistor ESR Meter in a previous post. At that time I calibrated it using through-hole resistors, by twisting their leads together and measuring it. However, since I omitted the voltage regulator in the original design, I noticed that as the battery voltage drops the meter measurement drifts. Usually I didn’t care much because I can just short the ESR Meter probes and adjust the 0Ω point.

Jay_Diddy_B has since published a design for the improved ESR Meter. I wish to build that version too, so I will probably need to calibrate that in the future. I do not wish to twist-and-untwist resistors again for this purpose, so I am assembling a circuit board.

I decided to do this using SMD resistors (1206 imperial size), hoping that this will increase my soldering experience. Yeah, well, I regretted that. The only thing I learn from this experience is how difficult it was!

If anything this experience just turned me off SMD soldering 😩

See ya folks.

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