I do essentitaly all my VOM work with the free HF units. This includes home, and I've got several in my two vehicles. I use them for repairs of electric alarm locks. And a couple Sundays ago, used one to help fix a 300,000 BTU (think it was about that size) furnace at church. Recently gave one to a friend who was in town, and didn't have a VOM with him.
Start with the Harbor Freight - freebee or very low cost - under $10.00
A lot will depend on what you want to measure. I have a farily expensive H P multimeter, but use the HF cheapie 00% of the time, I don't need the incr eased accuracy very much. Just, is the circuit activated, is it 6V or 9V o r 12V? For these levels of sophistication, you don't need more than a HF.
Is there a digital equivalent of a Wiggy? Is induced voltage any concern for most household use?
Something close is the Fluke T2. It has 2 leads attached. Just hook it up; and some leds will light up. It will indicate from 6 volts to 600. Indicate a short/or low ohms between the leads. I don't think they make it any more, but there may be an equal tester.
Very seldom is the induced voltage any problem around the house, but it can be.
Where I worked we had thousands of wires in conduits and it was a very great problem. The company would buy any meter I wanted and I had several Flukes, but often carried the old Simpson 260 analog due to the induced voltage problem. It would often show something, but only about half of what I expected to see if I was getting a true voltage.
There are some meters out that have a button or special position to help on the induced voltage problem now. Sometimes I made my own by placing a resistor across the meter leads.
Maybe...but I'd shy away from the free ones if it's your only meter. I picked up one free. I was gonna throw it into the car, but decided to check it out. Shorted the probes on ohms. Reading varied around 500 ohms. OOPS!! Took it back. "sorry, it was free, not guaranteed." "I guess I got what I paid for, GRRRR!" "OK, go get another one."
This one is much better, but still crap. there are a lot of much better ones on sale at sears, home depot etc. for under $50.
One handy feature missing on cheap meters is the temperature function. Make sure it comes with the temperature probe.
First of all, if you ever buy a Set of crimped alligator leads, take time and solder each FIRST. They will fail passing current otherwise at some time.
I have used many meters, and have many meters. Some are broke. Some need fuses. I like $400 fluke meters. My current grab and go is this".....
Greg
Hi, Maybe for your type of work. Ever had one calibrated? I always maintain one meter calibrated. I don't send it to lab. I take it to where I uised to work where calibrated referwnce unit is maintained. I check mine against.
Never had one calibrated. Most of what I do, close is good enough. Fuse open, or not, that kind of thing. Have power, or not.
Fluke recommends that their meters be calibrated annually. They used to do it for free. Just pay for all of the shipping. If it is the oops, I dropped it again meter, no one cares. Those are a proof of concept tool and are meant to be kicked around, unlike the $300 plus meters that generally stay in their hard cases. Ever drop a Meger? That's an expensive oh sh#t! :-)
Hmmm... I had a similar problem with their offshoot... computer city I think it was called. I had multiple rebates.. none of them were paid.
I had also used my father in law for some...none of them were paid.
I had to fight with them to get them paid... They tried blaming me, that my address was wrong... but you know, that would not have happened for me and my father in law...
There's something wrong with RS.
I agree with the advice that's telling Jennifer to buy a cheap multimeter.
As DIY'ers, we seldom really measure anything other than voltage, and most times we're only concerned about whether it's there or not, and whether it's 24 VAC, 120 VAC or 240 VAC we're measuring.
I would tell Jennifer to buy a cheap multimeter than has a beeper to indicate continuity.
All of this other stuff, like measuring capacitance, is something a person rarely needs to do, and in those few cases, they can always take the capacitor to a trade school electronics instructor or any electronics repair shop to get them to measure it.
Fluke meters are great, but a lot of what you're paying for is the fact that they read true RMS voltage, which takes a little bit of electronic circuitry that a $10 meter doesn't have. But, the number of times where I've actually needed to measure true RMS voltage I can count on one finger. 99.9 % of the time we just want to know if there's voltage there, and if so, whether it's 24 VAC, 120 VAC or 240 VAC. You don't need the electronic wizardry that a Fluke meter would provide for that.
That's a seriously cool meter. I was all set to buy one...until I read the specs. The accuracy spec has a rider of 2x for 10C ambient change. And the sound level is +/- 3.5dB for an ear splitting 1kHz. sine wave and completely unspecified everywhere else.
Yep, it's Harbor Freight. I still think it's all cool and useful, just not enough to buy yet another meter.
I agree. I have a nice Simpson, but it's kind of a pain to drag that case around and untangle the leads. The cheap Radio Shack is what I usually reach for, unless I'm getting weird readings.
Just a warning though, about being concerned whether voltage is there or not. That's a great use for a meter, and can save you the occasional miserable oops. But the proper technique is Live-Dead-Live.
Check on a known live voltage to be sure the meter is working.
Check the wire you're about to touch to confirm you've disonnected it.
Then check AGAIN on a live source. Meters have been known to fail at just the wrong time, and your dead wire might not be really dead.
Okay, it's rare to have that problem. But that's the way I was taught to test.
Not caring about true RMS at the time, I got this meter.
I scored price wise on it (under 30). Would have preferred replacing my fried Fluke, but spur of the moment need and almost 400 bucks difference in price made the decision easy. I miss the milliamp driver, but cannot say that I have a true need for that any time soon.
Yep. Mine died once while trying to check resistance/continuity. The battery was low and did not bring the meter out of 0L even while there was a circuit established. The screen worked and all, but that was a cursing TSR moment. Luckily I figured out what was going on and had my expensive meter handy to finish the job in a few minutes. Yes, a hundred feet of wire is enough to defeat the meter with a low battery.
Led display ?
Greg
I just gave a customer a cheap Harbor Freight DMM and showed him how to use it to check the polarity of the power supply splice/links to the wireless IP cameras he wanted to install himself. $5.00 to avoid damage to equipment is a good investment. ^_^
TDD
My opinion:
Must-haves: AC volts to at least 300 V DC volts to at least 100 V AC and DC amps to 10 A, 15 A, or 20 A Ohms Continuity beeper (might be part of the Ohms function) Detachable test leads
Nice-to-haves: Auto-ranging "Smart" ohms mode that will flip over into volts mode if you accidentally probe a live circuit Backlit LCD Easy-to-get fuses Easy-to-get batteries Rubber case or holster Hooks, straps, stands, etc. Extra test leads, alligator clip attachments, etc.
Rationale: Those voltage and current ranges will handle anything that a mild- mannered homeowner will want to measure.
The continuity beeper is useful to figure out if a wire is broken or shorted to another wire, or if an (unpowered) switch is closed or open, without having to look at the meter.
The detachable test leads are because the leads *will* get beat up if you use it a lot. 99% of meters use standard "banana" plugs on the test leads, so any set of replacement leads will fit. This is kind of an advanced use, but if you have a situation where you want to wire the meter in for a while, you can buy banana plugs on your own and make a custom set of leads.
However, detachable leads do make the meter more bulky; the "pocket" meters tend not to have detachable leads. If you only use it once a month or less, detachable leads are not such a big deal.
Auto-ranging means you just have to pick (say) "AC Volts" or "Ohms" and the meter figures out the rest. Manual ranging means you have to choose between (say) 4 V AC, 40 V AC, and 400 V AC ranges. It will say on the package if it's auto-ranging, and also the big round switch on the front will be simpler (fewer positions).
The backlit display is easier to read in the dark, which includes the nooks and crannies of your furnace or washing machine. It uses a little bit of battery life, though.
"Smart" ohms mode is because if you try to measure resistance on a powered circuit, at best you'll get the wrong answer and at worst you'll blow up the meter. Some meters detect this, beep, and flip themselves over into measuring volts instead (which is safe for the meter).
Most all meters will have at least one internal fuse and a lot of them have two. Eventually you *will* blow one of them, probably the amps one. If it is a 15 A or 20 A ceramic 0.25" x 1.25" fuse, every Radio Shack, hardware store, and electronics store in the US can supply them (those fuses also get used in microwave ovens). If it's some weird size of fuse, you'll have to go to an electronics store or order online. You may have to look this up online; the packaging will say "fused for protection", but the fuse *size* is probably only in the owner's manual. Sometimes you get a spare fuse with the meter when new.
Most meters take a 9 V battery, but some take AAs or AAAs, and a few take oddballs. In general the battery will last for at least several months, and probably several years, so this isn't a super big deal. But it's nice to be able to scrounge a battery from something else if the meter goes dead at an inopportune time.
The case, holster, extra test leads just make it nicer to use, but aren't *required*.
Tips:
If the test probes aren't already like this, it can help to cover all but the last 1/8" (3 mm) or so of the metal probe tip, to avoid shorting it out on nearby wires. You can use electrical tape, heat-shrink tubing, or even stripped wire insulation if you can find some that is a good force fit.
When you first get it, practice on some stuff you know the voltages of, like flashlight batteries, a car battery, wall adapters for small electronics, and stuff like that. You can even (very carefully) measure your line voltage by sticking the probes in an electrical outlet.
If you get a manual-ranging one, and you have no idea what the answer is going to be, always start on the highest range and work down. This is less important than it was for an analog meter, but it's still nicer for the meter to not ask it to measure something out of range.
A lot of time, the amps ranges will require that you move the red lead over to a different socket. This is fine, but the *SECOND* you get done using that range, move the red lead back over to its regular socket - don't wait until later to move it back. The reason is that in the amps range, the meter is nearly a dead short. It's *easy* to measure current and then try to measure voltage without moving the lead back, and blow the fuse in the meter. I've watched it being done and I've even done it myself.
The one I use around the house is a Radio Shack 22-805, which I bought around 1999 or 2000 because of its computer connection, but I don't use that feature much now. It is a rebadged Metex meter. In Radio Shack's current lineup, the 22-813 ($40) or 22-075 ($45) might do what you want. Their 22-182 is a "pocket meter" style that is on sale for $20; that one will get you through a lot, but if I was going to buy only one meter from Radio Shack, I'd go for one of the other two.
My "daily driver" in my field toolbox for a long time has been a Sperry DM8400, which I bought probably at Home Depot in about 1997. The closest meter to that in their current lineup is probably the DM5300, which is about $80. Their lower-priced meters may be worth a look if they are easily available in your area.
I used to work with college students and they were unable to kill the two Fluke 12 multimeters we had, even though they tried. The only odd thing I ever noticed about these was that when the "low battery" indicator came on, the calibration would be off; replacing the 9 V battery made everything work right again. The closest current model is the Fluke 113, but it sells for about $120; I don't think they have any meters under this price.
I hope this helps!
Matt Roberds
At that price you can give them away and the customer probably feels important, even better than having his first power tool, especially a power saw. A very good way to please customers, I'll bet.
I think a lot of people think meters are beyond them, so if they learn how, that puts them way ahead of those still out there who don't know what to do with them.
I forgot that I'd given one to two or three friends, just because I thought they should have one.
I also gave even more of them the HF headlamp when it was on sale real cheap, but that might not have been such a good idea. If they don't use it, the batteries will leak. (and I don't even use mine.) And a few years later, LEDs got good enough to make a better light (still with batteries that might leak.)
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.