Auto off is great except for when doing long term monitoring and I have absolutely no use for anything that has auto range that can't be turned off and manually selected easily.

4 1/2 digits is nice but 5 1/2 is rather pointless being I don't really find that seeing the 100's of a volt level when working with a 120 VAC system voltage to be the least bit useful. Heck even 1/10 of a volt resolution at that voltage is largely useless.

Line level frequency input capability is nice for what I do. Single 2 Mhz frequency band isn't when trying to read a 60 cycle line frequency with any accuracy.

Backlighting on the display is nice! Thought I would never use it but the few times I have I really liked it.

20 amp continuous load capability on the current readings is nice. External plug and play AC/DC amp clamp as an accessory is very nice!

 

Auto off is great except for when doing long term monitoring and I have absolutely no use for anything that has auto range that can't be turned off and manually selected easily.

4 1/2 digits is nice but 5 1/2 is rather pointless being I don't really find that seeing the 100's of a volt level when working with a 120 VAC system voltage to be the least bit useful. Heck even 1/10 of a volt resolution at that voltage is largely useless.

Line level frequency input capability is nice for what I do. Single 2 Mhz frequency band isn't when trying to read a 60 cycle line frequency with any accuracy.

Backlighting on the display is nice! Thought I would never use it but the few times I have I really liked it.

20 amp continuous load capability on the current readings is nice. External plug and play AC/DC amp clamp as an accessory is very nice!

For the kinds of things I image you do a lot, I can see most of those features being very useful. For most hobbyists that don't work with power systems, they will seldom need a 20 A range (though having a range that matches common residential breakers certainly has attraction) or current clamps.

I agree about the 5 1/2 digits. Few measurements ever need to be to better than 1%, so having a meter capable of 0.1% resolution is not too unreasonable. More than that is a waste of money for most people. I think the number of times that I've actually needed a full 3 1/2 digits can probably be counted on one hand -- and when it came to that I didn't have faith that the meter (which had never been calibrated after leaving the factory) was actually up to the task so I used a bench meter instead. Now, this doesn't include when I've done work at the nanovolt scale -- completely different critter with completely different equipment.

I've had meters that had different jacks for different functions and I've had meters that didn't. I'm somewhat on the fence on this because there have been times when having the different jacks has saved the meter when I screwed up when switching from a voltage to a current measurement, but it's also a pain in the ass. I seldom make current measurements via putting the meter in series, so I have a bad tendency to occasionally not set it back up correctly before making voltage measurements again. In fact, I make so few direct current measurements that most of my meters have blown fuses on the current path that I've never bothered to replace.

I've never had a handheld DMM that had backlighting -- but there have been a few times when I sure wish one of them did.

 

I had to replace my bench meter a while back. As I will no longer be doing any field work, I wasn't going to spend a lot of money.

I bought one of these, not expecting too much.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-VC99-3-...798764?hash=item2808e330ec:g:0dwAAOSwWnFWBV~6

I have been using it for several months now, and I have certainly got my moneys worth.

At 35 bucks a pop, and if you have room for a spare, one might try it for field work. It has a bumper around it, but it feels lightweight compared to fluke, at least the old ones. Not sure how well the display is seated, or how hard a blow the switch and buttons could endure.

Anyhow, I would recommend this for a first meter.

 

I had to replace my bench meter a while back. As I will no longer be doing any field work, I wasn't going to spend a lot of money.

I bought one of these, not expecting too much.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-VC99-3-...798764?hash=item2808e330ec:g:0dwAAOSwWnFWBV~6

I have been using it for several months now, and I have certainly got my moneys worth.

At 35 bucks a pop, and if you have room for a spare, one might try it for field work. It has a bumper around it, but it feels lightweight compared to fluke, at least the old ones. Not sure how well the display is seated, or how hard a blow the switch and buttons could endure.

Anyhow, I would recommend this for a first meter.

They are good and you can also turn off auto range on some functions iirc. The problem I found with this one was that the rotary switch was a bit unreliable. I'm pretty sure the Victors are made by the same people but seem to be made to a much better standard and a true RMS meter.

http://www.amazon.com/Victor-Digital-Multimeter-VC97-Digits/dp/B00PA8I3A6

 

I'll chime in to second the Mastech MS8268. I've had that meter for several years and found that it does pretty much everything I need (with the possible exception of temperature, but dedicated thermocouple units are plentiful and cheap). The Mastech is surprisingly accurate and repeatable; it's within one least significant digit of my calibrated HP 34401A. The only caveat I would offer is this, and it applies to many of the Chinese meters: do NOT trust the Cat ratings unless you open the meter and verify proper input protection (HRC fuses, MOVs, spark gaps, etc.). Keep the Chinese meters away from high energy (mains) circuits.

The best trade off you're going to find in price vs performance and good safety is probably the Brymen line. There's a good reason Dave Jones went to Brymen for his eevBlog branded meter.

 

Here's something I learned the hard way. If you don't have a meter, find someone who does, and take them to the store when you buy your meter (cheap or otherwise). Have them bring something electronic with them, to test the meters features with, using their own meter as the control.

After purchasing two meters from a popular box store several years ago (3 trips to the store), and getting them home only to find out they both failed terribly on continuity tests, I finally took the 3rd trip to the store and brought a known meter and project. I opened the new meter in store (you're going to buy it, you have a write to do so), and tested it--found it had a problem, and proved it with my other meter.

It seems like overkill to some, but due to frustration, time lost, and so forth, frankly as a serious electronics engineer, relying on my tools that I only intend to buy once, I turned around and bought the best fluke multimeter there is. $900+ at the time... yeah, it's a chunk, but I haven't regretted it. I want the peace of mind of being able to trust my tools so if I find an anomoly, I'm not wondering if it's the tool also. In the end, this was my own solution, that I'm happy with.

Now, I'm not saying someone new at this should buy an expensive meter; just that they should have someone with a known good meter check the one they do buy-- could save them a lot of problems when the most need to be able to trust their tools-- the _learning_ stage.

 

Recently I was designing a 600w 20kV eht inverter and while testing the prototypes, used cheap £2.00 digital meters that I connected to external shunts and resistor stacks to measure current and voltage in case of catastrophic failure failure that could crisp my lab quality meters! It is always better to be safe than sorry!

 

I'll chime in to second the Mastech MS8268. I've had that meter for several years and found that it does pretty much everything I need (with the possible exception of temperature, but dedicated thermocouple units are plentiful and cheap). The Mastech is surprisingly accurate and repeatable; it's within one least significant digit of my calibrated HP 34401A. The only caveat I would offer is this, and it applies to many of the Chinese meters: do NOT trust the Cat ratings unless you open the meter and verify proper input protection (HRC fuses, MOVs, spark gaps, etc.). Keep the Chinese meters away from high energy (mains) circuits.

The best trade off you're going to find in price vs performance and good safety is probably the Brymen line. There's a good reason Dave Jones went to Brymen for his eevBlog branded meter.

I've had mine open once just to look at that and I didn't see anything I have not seen in a fluke meter at some point in my life. Yay for Mastech not so much for lower end fluke.

Personally I have never given mine a second though when testing 480 VAC three phase and HV DC that are in the ranges it's rated for but yea I think that's pushing things on my $5 Chinese units from Harbor Freight. Still doing it when one of those is the only meter close by but still sort of expect one to burst into flames some day.

About 20 years ago at one of my first jobs I had I was helping a coworker troubleshoot a plasma cutter that was acting up. We had traced the problem down to a DC power supply board that had some questionable solder joints. After a basic resolder job we hooked his near new Fluke to the DC buss and powered the unit up expecting to see the 180 - 200 volts the service manual said should be there.
We had that for maybe 2 seconds before his Fluke screen went blank followed by another two second delay before the whole inside of his meter lit up and shot smoke and flames out every seam!
To cover our butts we put my cheap Jr electrical service tech no name brand meter onto expecting that to fry and thus letting us blame the plasma cutter for killing them and his not being operator error but unfortunately mine read the correct voltages and never had a problem.

Granted it was probably just a random failure but being he had given me a full lecture on how superior fluke were to the cheapo no name units they gave us trainee techs while we worked on the machine the fatal and massive burndown of his meter at the end was sort of fitting payback..

That was also when I first starting questioning the quality Vs price of fluke products and have been steadily been disappointed ever since.
Especially so since the higher quality Chinese made stuff have jumped into the market since then and being able to match fluke meters step for step on head to head accuracy, precision and durability testing while selling for fractions of the price.

 

4 1/2 digits is nice but 5 1/2 is rather pointless being I don't really find that seeing the 100's of a volt level when working with a 120 VAC system voltage to be the least bit useful. Heck even 1/10 of a volt resolution at that voltage is largely useless.

As an analog designer, I work to 1% precision. My 3200 count meter does the job. I think that's called 3&1/2 digits.

 

Can you recommend me a good multimeter?


Some multimeters measure frequency. But what frequency? To any periodic signal or just to a sinusoidal signal?

Also I see:
200/2k/20k/200k/2M/20M/200MΩ

What does it mean? The range is from 200 to 200MΩ or it can also measure resistances below 200?

Imagine a "Zero to" before each value. Zero to 200, Zero to 2k, etc.

 

Further to my earlier post (#47) It is important to remember that when measuring more than an amp or so, that there is a time limit for how long you should leave the meter in circuit. This is because the internal shunt resistor (usually just a thick piece of solid bare wire in cheap meters) will heat up and if run at high amps for long periods, can damage the internals of the meter and it could even catch fire.
A better approach is to use an external shunt made up of a suitable material, Although not ideal, the wire from an electric fire element with two or more pieces in parallel with an air gap between them to aid keeping them cool to reduce resistance change due to heating. (See the article on this site for an explanation of temperature coefficient.)
Use the meter to measure the VOLTAGE across the resistor and then any heat produced is external to the meter. Ohms law will then give you the current in the circuit. I = V/R
For most practicle experimentation where you may need to make adjustments/substitutions, this approach saves having to allow time for the meter to cool, virtually safeguards the meter, and means you can monitor current continuously.
When determining the shunt resistance, which should be as low as possible, I found it easier to measure the resistance of a carefully measured metre of wire which is generally constant, then calculate the resistance for say 10cm etc.
Some proffessional shunts are bifilar wound to counteract self inductance when used on ac but for most purposes (Line frequency 50-60Hz) this can be ignored especially if only measuring dc current.

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