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I need help in choosing the right one, for use by a layman on anything electrical.

 

A family member thought that Fluke are the best, but I would appreciate your advice

 

Thank you

 

Alan

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Fluke are very good, but also expensive. For "Layman use" i.e. checking voltages, resistance, & continuity, one costing circa £10 would suffice.

 

Choose one with a "Beep" function for checking continuity.

 

Bob.

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Allan,

Fluke is the way to go, if you buy the automotive version, then you can add handy tools like temp. probe and other goodies. Like with most tools, buy the best and you'll have them for live, cheap stuff usually breaks down when you need it and then you'll have to go and buy better anyway.

Yves

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Some advice from someone who was brought up using the marvellous Avometer 8:

Always leave your multimeter with the switch set to the highest AC voltage (on mine, it's 700). That way, if you accidentally put the probes where you didn't mean to stick them, you're unlikely to damage the device!

 

And, if measuring current, always start with the highest range setting - you can always switch down when you are confident that you won't fry the meter!

 

Ian Cornish

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As said above, do not be tempted by seemingly cheap offerings. They will probably require replacement fairly quickly and the leads and probes etc. will not be of the best and durable quality.

 

Modern multi-meters are almost exclusively digital whereas the traditional Avo 8 and 9 and that ilk were analogue. While for some measurements an analogue instrument is preferred generally a decent digital meter is more accurate and will not load the circuit being measured due its much higher internal resistance.

 

A decent digital meter will also have in built protection should a senior moment occur during measurement. Not entirely fool-proof but this has saved me on a few occasions, when replacing the internal fuse has brought it back to life.

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Agreed Fluke are very fine instruments, but how many of us TR amateurs utilise a multimeter for anything more than the simplest of tasks ?

 

The cheapest most basic Fluke is over £100, anything more sophisticated from £150 through to £1K+ . . . . . .

 

Meanwhile, my two digital multimeters cost little more than a tenner apiece, and after at least 10 years regular useage fulfil all my needs and neither has ever failed or given a problem.

 

Nuts and sledgehammers spring to mind . . . . . :rolleyes:

 

Cheers,

 

Alec

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Agreed Fluke are very fine instruments, but how many of us TR amateurs utilise a multimeter for anything more than the simplest of tasks ?

 

The cheapest most basic Fluke is over £100, anything more sophisticated from £150 through to £1K+ . . . . . .

 

Meanwhile, my two digital multimeters cost little more than a tenner apiece, and after at least 10 years regular useage fulfil all my needs and neither has ever failed or given a problem.

 

Nuts and sledgehammers spring to mind . . . . . :rolleyes:

 

Cheers,

 

Alec

+1

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All you need is dc volts and ohms(continunity) so dont need expensive flukes or model8 avo's

If you look on ebay for around a tenner you will find a meter that will be om for your needs

Tony....ex Inst Eng

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To expand on post No.2

As a (retired) electronics designer, I have a selection of test equipment.

In my indoor workshop (the loft) I use a Fluke digital multimeter for accurate measurements.

Down stairs I have a cheap, but full size multimeter, happens to be made by Waveteck, it does nearly all I need for car, & domestic use.

I also have an AVO 8 which I use for measuring low value currents (up to 10A) for larger currents (up to 1000 A) I use a clamp meter connected to the Waveteck.

 

Unless you want the ultimate in accuracy just go for a low cost, but full size job, they usually use a 9V battery

Avoid the really small ones which use watch type batteries.

 

Bob.

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Another point about buying a £10 meter is that if it falls on the concrete floor, or you drop a spanner on it and destroy it, (Both possible working in a garage) it’s not the end of the world.

 

If I did that with a Fluke or a genuine AVO I’d probably burst into tears…

 

Also remember that you can do an awful lot of fault tracing with a humble test lamp.

 

I’m fitting a home made loom to my car at the moment. I built the loom about 10 years ago and I’ve now lost the drawings I made!

The test lamp is all I’ve used to work it out.

 

 

Charlie.

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I agree with Bob and Charlie. Anything expensive and complicated is just not warranted for occasional use on old-car electrics. As Charlie says you can cope quite well with a bulb on two wires for checking the presence of supply, and two wires- a battery- and either a bulb or a bell for checking continuity; in most cases that is all you need to do to diagnose car wiring faults.

 

My personal preference for general work is a moving-coil type meter rather than digital as the higher current drawn is actually an advantage in some situations, and the needle responds to fluctuations reather than just giving a blur of numbers. You really only need more than 10kOhms-per-Volt if you are working on high impedance electronic circuits where loading is a consideration.

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Hi Charlie,

here is some trivia. Instead of a bulb use a bleeper (audio).

Why? I hear you say.

Because it is faster. !! :blink:

 

For races (100 Mtrs etc) the starter always uses a gun.

The brain reacts/processes quicker to audio than visual stimuliiiii - honest

 

If you had used a bleeper in the past you would have finished it by now :P:P

 

Roger

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Roger,

 

You said:

“For races (100 Mtrs etc) the starter always uses a gun.”

 

So how do deaf athletes cope?

(Actually, I guess they can sense the vibration of the explosion.)

 

You also said:

 

“If you had used a bleeper in the past you would have finished it by now”

 

It would have been quicker if I’d used different coloured wires as well. Being a cheapskate I just bought a big reel of white cable and a set of coloured marker pens.

In the 10 years since I made the loom all the coloured marks have faded away.

 

 

Charlie.

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It would have been quicker if I’d used different coloured wires as well. Being a cheapskate I just bought a big reel of white cable and a set of coloured marker pens.

In the 10 years since I made the loom all the coloured marks have faded away.

 

 

Charlie.

:lol::lol::lol::lol::lol:

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I've had a Fluke multimeter for over thirty years, and I'm sure it will be going strong for decades to come. But I also have three or four economy multimeters inherited from my electrical engineer brother, who spent his career in microchip fabrication. To be honest, I use all of them interchangeably and they all work just fine.

 

All the seriously knowledgeable folks here who recommend economy meters are right on.

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Roger,

 

You said:

“For races (100 Mtrs etc) the starter always uses a gun.”

 

So how do deaf athletes cope?

(Actually, I guess they can sense the vibration of the explosion.)

 

You also said:

 

“If you had used a bleeper in the past you would have finished it by now”

 

It would have been quicker if I’d used different coloured wires as well. Being a cheapskate I just bought a big reel of white cable and a set of coloured marker pens.

In the 10 years since I made the loom all the coloured marks have faded away.

 

 

Charlie.

In 1975, when I modernised my TR2 to have working steering wheel control horn/indicators and seats that looked like the space age TR7, I made the 4 wire loom for my steering column from 'Nyvin' (all wires are white sheathed on the aeroplanes I worked on) - I marked the wires with a coloured felt tip pen, just like making my own seat and door trim covering to look as modern as the Coventry Jockanese (nice!) TR7. The colours have since worn off the wires, (the seats I resprayed black as they looked too fast for my car) and subsequent disconnecting/reconnecting from the main wiring is heralded by nightmares of smoking looms.

I will get round to marking it ...honest.

Cheers

Peter W

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My Radio Shack analogue meter only cost a pound or two and is still going strong after 40 years and I don't remember ever changing the battery. I also have a basic digital meter bought in Maplins (not the holiday camp) about 10 years ago for a fiver which is good enough for my limited electrical exploits.

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On that meter you will probably find a few settings useful for car faults:

 

The 20V dc range for looking at things like the battery voltage

The 'diode' setting which beeps if there is continuity, so you can use it to trace wires and connections

The 200/2000/20k Ohms ranges for resistance readings on things like petrol gauge senders.

 

Its unlikely you will ever need to measure current.

Of course the AC ranges are not needed on a car and you can ignore the Hfe setting as that is for measuring the gain on transistors.

Edited by RobH
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Hi Rob

 

Thanks

 

Meanwhile, I suspended my "lazy" mode and looked online for answers and found out how to check batteries.

 

But, what do you mean by diode setting? Where is it on the meter?

 

As for resistance, could you explain how I could test the petrol gauge sender with my meter?

 

Thanks

Edited by qim
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