The ESR-T4 tester is quite in demand in the practice of a radio amateur. But one day, checking an undischarged electrolytic capacitor ordered him to live long. This is treated by replacing the ATmega328P with subsequent firmware. At the same time, after the firmware, the ESR-T4 learned how to check zener diodes, a rectangular pulse generator was added, and the ability to measure the capacitance and ESR of capacitors without soldering them from the board was also added.

For the firmware of the controller, the cheapest AVR USB ASP programmer was ordered, for example, such as in the photo. We buy a kit with an adapter.

Also found a driver for it and software for firmware AVRDUDE.

1. Run _AVRDUDE_PROG , select ATmega328P

2. Specify the path to the TransistorTester.hex file (there should be no Russian letters in the path).

3. Specify the path to the TransistorTester.eep file (there should be no Russian letters in the path).

4. Set fuses. Don’t be afraid to screw up your processor. If you think you screwed up, click on the default. Then set the fuses according to the picture. Before programming, read about the two most dangerous fuses. Do not change them under any circumstances. Otherwise, without a high-voltage programmer, you will not unlock it. The rest can be changed as much as you like.

The fuses are inverted!

I could not remove the inactive checkboxes by default and picked up a working version for myself. In the original, the fuses are set like this:

5. Connect USBASP programmer . On my device there were no contacts for the programmer connector, we solder them so that the conclusions are from the side of the microprocessor. On my device, the contacts are labeled on the opposite side, which is inconvenient.

Press ” Read ” near HEX , if it was considered – there is a connection with the programmer.

On my programmer, the JP3 pins are shorted (otherwise the new chip will not be flashed, by default it has a low frequency), JP21 in the 3.3 Volt position .

6. Open the Program tab

7. Press ” Programming “, fill in the hex file (wait until writing and reading is 100% complete, a message will be displayed).

8. Press ” Programming “, fill in the eep file (wait until the writing and reading is completed by 100%, it will display a message).

9. Go to the Fuses tab . Press ” Programming ” (fill fuses).

Disable and use. 

PS When you first turn on the small contrast. Long press the button, enter the menu. We select “contrast” with a short press, set 55. A short press is minus one, a long press is plus one.

Calibrate and save the calibration. 

Calibration is started from the same menu. At startup, the device will ask you to short 3 outputs. Short contacts to start. Now the device asks to remove the jumper.

You need to remove the jumper. Next, you need to insert a capacitor of more than 100 nF, I put 150 nF.

Installing a capacitor over 100nF

Next, the device will ask you to install a 10-30 nF capacitor, I will put 20 nF. After a couple of seconds, the device will write that the test has been successfully completed. It will also show the firmware version, in my case 1.13K.

Completion of the test. Now you can use the device.