Types of Compensation for NI LCR Meters

Compensation improves the accuracy of LCR measurements you make with NI LCR meters. There are multiple compensation types, which you can combine in various ways to achieve the accuracy you need.

You can make LCR measurements your NI LCR meter without applying any compensation at all. However, the more comprehensive your approach to compensation, the closer you can expect your measurements to be to the actual values of the quantities you are measuring. You can perform as much or as little compensation as is necessary for the degree of measurement accuracy your application requires.

There are two overall compensation types for NI LCR meters—cable compensation and LCR compensation—and there are a few ways to perform each based on your test setup and requirements.

  • Cable compensation—Corrects for cabling effects: improves coherence across measurements. There are two types of cable compensation for NI LCR meters:
    • Standard cable compensation—Applies a compensation for a typical NI-made cable of supported lengths. Does not require you to generate compensation data experimentally.
    • Custom cable compensation—Generates compensation data for your specific test setup using open and short configurations. Best suited to complex test setups or setups that involve non-NI cables.
  • LCR compensation—Applies corrections to your LCR measurements to account for the effects of cables and fixtures: improves overall measurement accuracy. There are three types of LCR compensation for NI LCR meters:
    • Open LCR compensation—Generates data to compensate for stray admittance in your test setup by determining corrections when the circuit is open.
    • Short LCR compensation—Generates data to compensate for residual impedance in your test setup by determining corrections when the circuit is shorted and no DUT is connected.
    • Load LCR compensation—Generates data to compensate for effects in complex circuit configurations that open and short compensation alone cannot account for by determining corrections when a reference load with well-known characteristics that are similar to those of your DUT is used in place of the DUT.

    • Access this compensation functionality with the NI-DCPower instrument driver, which provides the API that controls NI LCR meters.