Rant: I used to never bother with capacitor ESR testing, now I'm a believer
I was fixing this old Samsung TV from 2012 this morning, power supply looked fine visually but it kept shutting off. My buddy who runs a repair shop in Phoenix stopped by and told me I was an idiot for just looking at bulges. He pulled out his little ESR meter and tested a cap that looked perfect, read like 30 ohms. Swapped that one cap and the TV fired right up. I always thought ESR meters were overkill for hobby stuff, but that one test saved me maybe an hour of guessing. Now I'm looking at getting a decent one, maybe the Peak Atlas or something similar. Anyone else have a similar moment where one tool totally changed how you approach repairs?