In this section:
Introduction .............................................................................. 6-1
Equipment required .................................................................. 6-1
Set up remote communications ................................................ 6-2
Device connections .................................................................. 6-2
Measuring leakage current ....................................................... 6-4
Measuring insulation resistance ............................................... 6-8
Introduction
Measuring leakage current or insulation resistance of a device involves applying a fixed voltage to the
device and measuring the resulting current. Depending on the device under test, the measured
current is typically very small, usually less than 10 nA.
This application consists of two examples that demonstrate:
•
How to use the Model 2450 Interactive SourceMeter
®
instrument to perform leakage current
measurements on a capacitor
•
How to use the Model 2450 Interactive SourceMeter
®
instrument to measure insulation resistance
between the two conductors of a coaxial cable
The only difference between these two tests is that in the measuring leakage current example, the
results are returned in units of amperes, and for the insulation resistance test, the results are returned
in units of ohms.
In the leakage current application, the voltage is applied for a specified time period because the
device needs time to charge up. In some cases, the resulting current is measured the entire time the
device is biased, and in other cases only one reading is taken at the end of the desired “soak” period.
The following topics describe how to perform these tests from the front panel and over the remote
interface using SCPI commands and Test Script Processor (TSP
®
) commands.
Equipment required
•
One Model 2450 Interactive SourceMeter
®
instrument
•
Two triaxial cables
•
One capacitor (for the leakage current application)
•
One coaxial cable or other device (for the insulation resistance application)
•
One ethernet, GPIB, or USB cable (for the TSP and SCPI remote command examples)
Section 6
Leakage current and insulation resistance
