4 ms·

When you get up to buying meters, the main advantage of Flukes is that you can accidentally put 500 volts into them, and they survive it. When soldering, it's i

When you get up to buying meters, the main advantage of Flukes is that you can accidentally put 500 volts into them, and they survive it. When soldering, it's important to wear Jeans, or other heavy non-plastic full length pants.

rtkwe 3y ago
I've never had solder come anywhere near my clothes when soldering electronics.
- ChuckMcM 3y ago
  Yet :-)
- syntaxing 3y ago
  I’ve seen more than once people tinning their solder irons by add some solder and flicking the solder onto the floor hard.
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    I did that for many years, and even hit my bare legs or feet a few times. But the solder cools really fast, and doing that doesn't cause a great deal of pain or damage. Just enough to remind you to be more careful. These days, I flick the solder onto my soldering mat instead.
syntaxing 3y ago
I’ve fried my 3D printer board once because of using a cheap meter. My good meter was out of reach so I grabbed a closer dirt cheap one to measure the output of the 24V bed. Instantly shorted my board and welded the leads to the screw. Long story short, don’t cheap out on multimeters.
- fest 3y ago
  What exactly happened there, and why do you think it wouldn't happen with a more expensive meter?
  - snovv_crash 3y ago
    My fluke has a fuse on the ammeter.
    - fest 3y ago
      Yes, unfused 10A range would have been my guess, but if device under test doesn't have short-circuit protection, it might as well die during the few tens of milliseconds that the fuse needs to heat up and blow, as well as a user error to be measuring voltage with switch in current measurement position.
- BillyTheMage 3y ago
  I'm a beginner here, but I want to assume that if it was enough to weld it, the cheap meter wasn't the problem.
- c_o_n_v_e_x 3y ago
  Sounds like you tried measuring voltage while your meter was set to measure amperage
flashback2199 3y ago
Counterpoint: The IC at the heart of basically every cheap meter is a clone of the IC in an old Fluke DMM https://www.pa3fwm.nl/technotes/tn27a-voltmeter.html https://www.pa3fwm.nl/technotes/tn27a-voltmeter.html Honestly I would say cheap out on the DMM and splurge for a good oscilloscope, you get much farther with that. But, I'm someone who doesn't do high voltage much, or really at all.
- clumsysmurf 3y ago
  I would suspect the clamp diodes / protections would be external to the IC?
  - flashback2199 3y ago
    Right, I agree that if you're doing HV or need high accuracy, don't cheap on the DMM, otherwise I do think cheap DMMs are good enough for a lot of things and that being able to see the waveform is often more useful than a perfect static measurement
    - JohnFen 3y ago
      90% of the time when I'm using a multimeter, I'm just doing continuity checks anyway.
      - flashback2199 3y ago
        Yes, and while we're talking about probing, my favorite DMMs by far are the pen shaped DMMs because one hand holds both the DMM and the positive probe; small, no flat surface needed and always easy to read the screen. No more putting the DMM down on something and holding the probes on while craning my neck to read the DMM, pick up the DMM to move to another location, repeat, so tiring - I tried a pen DMM a few years ago on a whim and I'm always going to use a pen DMM now on.
        JohnFen 3y ago
redprince 3y ago
You can put that into other quality meters as long as their CAT rating is sufficient and was verified by a reputable testing lab (Underwriter Labs, TÜV, etc.). Fluke isn't the only player in town with quality meters. Also don't skimp on the meter, buy something decent. There is a lot to be said about the real life and noticeable differences in cheap and quality meters when testing or repairing electronics but in the realm of embedded device hacking I particularly found the following features handy: - A high speed voltage bar at the bottom of the instrument which tells you if a voltage is indeed stable. You can detect the TX pin of serial lines with that. Cheap meters may have that bar but the update speed is way too slow to be useful - A high speed and loud continuity tester. Many cheap meters (and some expensive as well) have a large delay between shorting out the leads and the buzzer going off. That's rather annoying when you can't make good contact long enough (also see below for test leads). After working with a cheap meter for a while (Uni-T) I went for a Brymen BM869s and never looked back. Also get yourself some high quality pointy, hard gold coated test leads. I personally can wholeheartedly recommend the Probemaster 8000 series.

rtkwe 3y ago

I've never had solder come anywhere near my clothes when soldering electronics.

ChuckMcM 3y ago
Yet :-)
syntaxing 3y ago
I’ve seen more than once people tinning their solder irons by add some solder and flicking the solder onto the floor hard.
- JohnFen 3y ago
  I did that for many years, and even hit my bare legs or feet a few times. But the solder cools really fast, and doing that doesn't cause a great deal of pain or damage. Just enough to remind you to be more careful. These days, I flick the solder onto my soldering mat instead.

syntaxing 3y ago

I’ve fried my 3D printer board once because of using a cheap meter. My good meter was out of reach so I grabbed a closer dirt cheap one to measure the output of the 24V bed. Instantly shorted my board and welded the leads to the screw. Long story short, don’t cheap out on multimeters.

fest 3y ago
What exactly happened there, and why do you think it wouldn't happen with a more expensive meter?
- snovv_crash 3y ago
  My fluke has a fuse on the ammeter.
  - fest 3y ago
    Yes, unfused 10A range would have been my guess, but if device under test doesn't have short-circuit protection, it might as well die during the few tens of milliseconds that the fuse needs to heat up and blow, as well as a user error to be measuring voltage with switch in current measurement position.
BillyTheMage 3y ago
I'm a beginner here, but I want to assume that if it was enough to weld it, the cheap meter wasn't the problem.
c_o_n_v_e_x 3y ago
Sounds like you tried measuring voltage while your meter was set to measure amperage

flashback2199 3y ago

Counterpoint: The IC at the heart of basically every cheap meter is a clone of the IC in an old Fluke DMM https://www.pa3fwm.nl/technotes/tn27a-voltmeter.html https://www.pa3fwm.nl/technotes/tn27a-voltmeter.html Honestly I would say cheap out on the DMM and splurge for a good oscilloscope, you get much farther with that. But, I'm someone who doesn't do high voltage much, or really at all.

clumsysmurf 3y ago
I would suspect the clamp diodes / protections would be external to the IC?
- flashback2199 3y ago
  Right, I agree that if you're doing HV or need high accuracy, don't cheap on the DMM, otherwise I do think cheap DMMs are good enough for a lot of things and that being able to see the waveform is often more useful than a perfect static measurement
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    90% of the time when I'm using a multimeter, I'm just doing continuity checks anyway.
    - flashback2199 3y ago
      Yes, and while we're talking about probing, my favorite DMMs by far are the pen shaped DMMs because one hand holds both the DMM and the positive probe; small, no flat surface needed and always easy to read the screen. No more putting the DMM down on something and holding the probes on while craning my neck to read the DMM, pick up the DMM to move to another location, repeat, so tiring - I tried a pen DMM a few years ago on a whim and I'm always going to use a pen DMM now on.
      - JohnFen 3y ago

redprince 3y ago

You can put that into other quality meters as long as their CAT rating is sufficient and was verified by a reputable testing lab (Underwriter Labs, TÜV, etc.). Fluke isn't the only player in town with quality meters. Also don't skimp on the meter, buy something decent. There is a lot to be said about the real life and noticeable differences in cheap and quality meters when testing or repairing electronics but in the realm of embedded device hacking I particularly found the following features handy: - A high speed voltage bar at the bottom of the instrument which tells you if a voltage is indeed stable. You can detect the TX pin of serial lines with that. Cheap meters may have that bar but the update speed is way too slow to be useful - A high speed and loud continuity tester. Many cheap meters (and some expensive as well) have a large delay between shorting out the leads and the buzzer going off. That's rather annoying when you can't make good contact long enough (also see below for test leads). After working with a cheap meter for a while (Uni-T) I went for a Brymen BM869s and never looked back. Also get yourself some high quality pointy, hard gold coated test leads. I personally can wholeheartedly recommend the Probemaster 8000 series.