I Ain’t Afraid of No Interference: The MESTEK EMF01

When first getting started with electronics, things can seem pretty straightforward. Connect an LED to a microcontroller running a blink program and you get exactly what is expected. However, when circuits get more complex — and especially when signals move at high speeds — you get weird and unpredictable results at times. This can be from factors like parasitic capacitance or electromagnetic radiation.

These effects can be incredibly difficult to diagnose (let alone fix!) in a home lab. For most people, it takes years of experience to learn how to avoid these issues. But if you have the right tools, you will have a huge advantage. Hacktuber just took a look at an inexpensive tool he found on AliExpress that could be a good one to have in your toolbox. It might save you from an awful lot of frustration and wasted time.

While this tool may look like something that a Ghostbuster would use, what it detects is not at all supernatural. It is an electromagnetic radiation detector, and it can help you pinpoint sources of this unwanted interference that can make an otherwise perfectly good circuit design go completely cuckoo. It is called the MESTEK EMF01 Electromagnetic Radiation Detector, and it currently sells for about $16.

This handheld gadget has an antenna on the top that picks up electromagnetic radiation, and an LCD display that shows the number of volts per meter that were measured. It also has an indicator that alerts you when the measured level is concerningly high. By moving the antenna over a circuit, you can find the source of excessive radiation leakage. And aside from troubleshooting circuits, the device can also be used to assess environmental levels of electromagnetic radiation. After playing with this for a while, you might find yourself reorganizing your lab so that all of your electronics are not sitting right in front of you on your desk.

For the full evaluation, be sure to check out the video. If interested, you can pick one up at AliExpress.