First, a little rant: This meter was $99 + $35 shipping, which was a pretty good deal. That made it around £85. But because I ordered it from the USA (couldn't find it *anywhere* in the UK) I had to pay £23 in customs fees / VAT. That made it a bit more expensive than I had originally intended.

But, it is a nice meter. It's a BK Precision 2709B. True RMS, 6,600 counts, 0.5% basic DC accuracy. Very good protection; two massive MOVs according to internal pictures, along with HRC fuses. Continuity mode is fast (<100ms) and latched (which is very good.) Most other ranges autorange very quickly. Capacitance is a bit slow, but does go up to 66mF, and it does let you range switch through it. It measures frequency, up to 66 MHz(!), which eliminates my need to buy a separate frequency counter, for now at least, as long as I don't need to measure very high frequencies.

It's also got input jack detection. If you select a voltage range, but plug the probes into the current jacks, it beeps at you to alert you to this (very useful!) All ranges but AC/DC volts are protected to 500V; AC/DC goes to 750Vrms/1000V.

I chose it mainly because Dave Jones (eevblog) highly recommended it.

 

On B&K's website, there's a link "Where to Buy" and they give a UK distributor:

Company: Metrix Electronics Ltd
City: Hampshire
Country: United Kingdom
Phone: 44 845 0343234

If that one isn't current, an email or phone call to B&K might have uncovered another distributor near you.

 

Bk..I never heard of 'em..

 

On B&K's website, there's a link "Where to Buy" and they give a UK distributor:

Company: Metrix Electronics Ltd
City: Hampshire
Country: United Kingdom
Phone: 44 845 0343234

If that one isn't current, an email or phone call to B&K might have uncovered another distributor near you.

Dammit, if I'd known that... anyway, I've bought it now.

 

The frequency bandwidth is impressive! Price isn't too bad either.

What is the shortest duration will the min/max/avg function catch? 1mS 10mS?

 

Just some recollections....
One of B&K Precision's early products was a TV picture tube rejuvenator. I remember reading about those things back in the 60's. The basic idea was to get the cathode really hot by increasing the heater voltage temporarily, and then giving the cathode a HV blast that would strip a layer of the cathode material off. This was far better than methods that were offered by other manufacturers.

I remember a "picture tube brightener" which you plugged in between the chassis harness and the picture tube base; my Dad bought one in the early 60's for our big DuMont black & white TV that was getting dark. I'm sure what it contained was a transformer to boost the voltage supplied to the heater filaments, increasing the emissions from the cathode.

In those days, when you turned off a TV, the picture shrunk to an eerie white dot that remained for a long time in the center of the screen, which I would watch with fascination; I had no clue that I was being exposed to X-ray radiation. More modern CRT TV's had circuitry to prevent such emissions. Nowadays, you can't even buy a CRT TV, they are all LCD or LED panels.

 

The frequency bandwidth is impressive! Price isn't too bad either.

What is the shortest duration will the min/max/avg function catch? 1mS 10mS?

I believe it is limited to the sample rate, so only 333ms (3 Hz sampling.)

I also know now how I missed that supplier - I went to BK's site, typed in "2709B" to search for distributors, and got this list:

http://www.bkprecision.com/where_to_buy/index.php?invt_id=2709b&match_opt=S&wtb_ref=UNKN

The closest one was Sefram, but they had no pricing. All the others were US based.

SgtWookie, your story brings an interesting point; why do modern CRT TVs flash when you turn them off? I remember once having a TV which did not do this. It was a sales point, I think, but I don't really know why...

To test the frequency counter, I can use my dsPIC33F which should be clocked at 36.85 MHz +/-1%, or my PIC24F, clocked at 14.7456 MHz +/-0.005%.

 

<snip>
SgtWookie, your story brings an interesting point; why do modern CRT TVs flash when you turn them off? I remember once having a TV which did not do this. It was a sales point, I think, but I don't really know why...

Can't tell you offhand.

 

Hard to beat a good B&K

 

Hi wookie, I still have one of those picture tube brighteners. Here in Australia they were made by Arlec, was a small 240V to taped outputs of 6.3/7.5/8.5/9.5V ac @ 1Amp. they certainly extended a BW picture tube, then that was back in the 60s.