Accuprobe

The Accuprobe is a kit from the NorTex QRP Club. It's an easy-to-build, inexpensive, RF probe that can be used by anyone building or repairing their own equipment. It's different than most RF probes because it uses an opamp rather than just a couple of caps and a diode. It has a claimed accuracy of 10 percent and a low range down to 50mV and a high range up to 35V. There are only a few components to be soldered to the 1.8 X 1.9 inch board. The circuit board is of excellent quality, silk screened and has plated through holes. My kit arrived without the special opamp so I haven't been able to put it through it's paces yet. You can click on any of the pictures below for a larger view.

The above picture shows the completed circuit board.

The Accuprobe was designed to be housed in an Altoids tin, which it does quite nicely.

A close up view of the probe. The empty solder lug is for a ground strap

This was a simple kit to build and the whole project took less than an hour and a half to complete. I don't know how easy it will be to get the probe into some places because of it overall size but I'm sure to put it to good use. I noticed the opamp is available in SMD format and I believe one could reduce the over all size quite a bit. Maybe it could be redesigned to fit into a magic marker sized container hmmmmm.