So now that I have a proper frequency meter, I want to use it to measure electrical resistance, capacitance and inductance. The natural path to take is to make some oscillating circuit whose frequency is proportional to the values we want to measure.

Alas, this seems like a problem - Traditional RC circuits has their frequency inversely proportional to both capacitance and resistance:

With the less popular RL circuits, this is somewhat better, with frequency proportional to the resistance and inverse to the inductance: 

Hence naively using my frequency meter, I can get, maybe, a circuit that measures resistance only, and requires using one of these bulky inductors, which probably would be a pain to work with.

It seems, if so, that physics and human conventions for electrical quantities put me in a difficult position for this project - how could I measure these values using my frequency meter?

I was able to come up with 4 possible solutions:

1. Leave it as is, measuring the inverse of these quantities - that is, measure admittance rather than impedance.
2. Add some digital circuit which can invert the admittance into impedance, displaying these wanted values on the display.
3. Switch the meter's input and latch signals, effectively measuring the period rather than the frequency generated, which should be proportional to the relevant electrical quantities.
4. Use some analog wizardry to effectively invert the impedance measured.

The first one is a no-go: Nobody uses such quantities, we all use the old LCR values - not their inverse. To use conventional units, I'd have to use a calculator whenever I measure these values, making the device plain stupid.

The second solution won't do either - It's almost like saying that it can't be achieved without some computing. Was it so, I'd rather put there an MCU to begin with and call it a day, and that would be lame.

The third option might seem appealing, yet it has some drawbacks:

• First and foremost, it means that I must be able to alter the counter control somehow. It complicates the design, forcing me to add more parts in, and making the frequency meter function itself a one trick pony.
• Second, it makes the display refresh rate dependent on the component measured. This can lead to funky behavior - For periods very small the display will frantically refresh itself bazillion times a second, and for periods too long it would take ages to refresh. While this can be solved, it would mean once again complicating the control circuit significantly.
• Last one concerns with user control of the device. I thought about simple switches for configuring the device parameters, such as value ranges (nF-uF-mF for example). The complicated control required for this solution might mean using exotic switches with many terminals, which I don't own and do not intend to - or rather add more control circuitry to translate simple switches to complicated sets of parameters.

I'm less then keen to walk into this sort of electrical swamp, more so when the result is so non-elegant.

Thus, it seems, the first route to pick is the route of analog wizardry. Wizards back in the analog days had plenty of cool tricks up their sleeves, and I'm sure that there's some trick for, say, effectively inverting the impedance of some component, thus solving all of my problems in an elegant manner.

I am, however, not an analog wizard. Despite being sent to a wizard school, my knowledge is rather rudimentary and my experience dull. To accomplish, I'll have to learn some new analog spells and trick, and maybe capture and train some analog dragons.

Will analog wizardry save the day? Time will tell.

Let the analog adventure begin :D