1615-A

The General Radio 1615-A Capacitance Bridge was introduced in Catalog R (1963) and remained available through Catalog 1978.

The Type 1615-A is a laboratory grade capacitance bridge with an accuracy of ±.01%. It uses a specially designed transformer as part of the bridge circuit. The transformers primary connected to the generator terminals supplies power to the bridge and the a tapped secondary windings comprise two arms of the bridge. The tapped side of the transformer along with capacitance standards comprise one arm of the bridge circuit. The opposite side is series with the unknown. Eight capacitance standards are housed in a sealed nitrogen filled container. This design enables the high performance of this bridge and stability of it's measurements.

Balancing the bridge for capacitance is performed using 6 lever-type switches with 12 positions plus a range switch. This creates a 6 digit display in windows above of the measured capacitance with automatic decimal point placement. Dissipation factor or conductance are performed in a similar way with 4 switches and 4 digit display with automatic decimal point placement performed by it's range switch.

The 1615-A measures two or three terminal capacitances controlled by panel switch using two sets of connectors, three terminal using two coaxial connectors or three binding posts and two terminal measurements with two binding posts. This switch also updates the simplified schematic engraved on the panel and has a position to enable a calibrate function. There's a small removable access panel covering the calibration adjustments.

An accessory Type 1615-P1 Range Extension Capacitor is available that extends the upper limit to 11.11110 μF and Type 1615-P2 Coaxial Adapter converts 2 terminal binding posts to the GR900 system.

Specifications

• Ranges Of Measurement
• Capacitance: 10 μpF to 1.11110 μF in 6 ranges
• Dissipation-Factor: 0.000001 to 1 at 1 kHz in 3 ranges
• Conductance: 2 ranges; See manual
• Accuracy: ±.01%
• Frequency: Approximately 50 Hz to 10 kHz, with reduced accuracy to 100 kHz

Links

• Experimenter August 1962 describing Type 1615-A
• Experimenter February 1963 describing Type 1615-P1

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