On Jan 8, 9:10*pm, wrote:
On 9 Jan 2012 01:18:37 GMT, notbob wrote:





On 2012-01-09, Home Guy wrote:

A $40 or $50 meter will be fine for a moderately advanced home engineer
/ hobbyist.

The botton line is regularity of use and ruggedness of construction.
If you're only gonna use it a few times per year, get a cheapo at
Radio Shack. *If you are going to start building electical kits or
trouble shooting your car/motorcycle, house wiring, etc, and end up
using it every day or several times per week, spend the money on one
that can take the repeated use/abuse.

It's not about accuracy or the most features, it's about reliability.
Cheapo meters will not last. *The connectors will fail, the switches
will short out, the display will become iffy. *I know, as I used to
maintain production floor tools, including multi-meters, at two high
tech mfg companies.

Cheap meters fall apart sooner than more expensive meters. *It's that
simple. *You decide which is most suited to your application and
wallet.

nb

*I've got 2 Eicos and another cheap one I've owned and used for over
25 years that are still just fine. Been through about 6 sets of leads
between them - but other than that they are fine.
I've got a cheap chinese clampon (AC) meter the daughters got me for
christmas a few years ago, as well as a DC clamp-on Hastings DE1000 -
the most expensive and least reliable/accurate one I've got.

*My "bench" meter is a Micronta *22-195A AUTORANGING *with nin-max
memory etc. Bought it in '86.
I hace a "power fist" DT9208 - Princess Auto special - similar to
Harbor Freight - Paid about $30 on sale - reads *thermocouples,
measures capacitors, up to 20 amps, frequency and transistor hFE, as
well as acting as a logic probe.
*About half a dozen *Princess Auto / discount electronics store meters
purchaced for between $4.99 and $19.00. Only one "dud" over the years.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

I'm glad you mentioned Micronta as your bench meter. In my original
post I said Radio Shack meters, but in fact mine are also Micronta
meters that I bought from Radio Shack many years ago. I guess that
Micronta was a trade name Radio Shack used at the time. At any rate,
I think that I'll have to withdraw my nomination for the shack's
CURRENT lineup of meters. I looked thm up on their website, and they
no longer mention Micronta. In fact, all their current meters have
received truly miserable reviews from customers. So I know that I
wouldn't be tempted to buy them anymore. They're considerably cheaper
in price than the Micronta ones I bought years ago. Those were in the
range of 80 to $100 at that time.
JimCo