Measuring Leakage Current - Keithley 2470 User Manual

Section 5: Leakage current and insulation resistance

Measuring leakage current

The following application demonstrates how to use the 2470 to measure the leakage current of a
high-voltage 10 µF capacitor by sourcing a voltage and measuring the resulting current using the front
panel or over the remote interface. The remote interface examples show SCPI commands and TSP
commands.
This application sets the 2470 to source 300 V and measure the resulting leakage current as a
function of time. The instrument makes current measurements for a specific period.
For this test, you will:
•
Reset the instrument
•
Set the instrument to read the rear terminals
•
Select the source voltage function and measure current function
•
Set the magnitude of the voltage source
•
Turn on autoranging
•
Set the measure delay
•
Use the DurationLoop trigger model template to make readings for a specified period
•
Turn on the source output
•
Take readings for a specified period
•
Turn off the source output
When you use the 2470 to measure small current values, ensure that the device under test is
electrostatically shielded. If the capacitor rating is greater than 20 nF, enable the high capacitance
mode for best results.
For more information about making optimized capacitor leakage measurements and minimizing
noisy measurements, see the Keithley Instruments Low Level Measurements Handbook, available
on the Keithley Instruments website
5-4
Model 2470 High Voltage SourceMeter Instrument User's Manual
(tek.com/keithley).
2470-900-01 Rev. A / May 2019