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Half decent 5.5 digit meter

Posted: Mon Dec 17, 2018 8:47 am
by billshurv
Time has come I can't keep borrowing off friends and need to get a half decent 5.5 or 6.5 digit meter. I have my eye on a solartron 7150 as I've borrowed those in the past, they are compact and affordable in uk due to a dumping of a lot of mil surplus units so under $100. Any others I should be looking at?

Re: Half decent 5.5 digit meter

Posted: Mon Dec 17, 2018 12:25 pm
by JR.
I recently bough two new VOMs when my old rat shack meter stopped working (turns out it just blew a fuse in series with the leads) Now I have way too many VOMs.

My current favorite is Fluke 107 but I also have a cheap no-name back up (ASTRO AM 33D) that still works AFAIK, but I never use it.

[edit the Fluke is only 4 digit so not what you are asking about. [/edit]

JR

Re: Half decent 5.5 digit meter

Posted: Mon Dec 17, 2018 2:06 pm
by mediatechnology
If you can use a 4.5 or 4.75 digit take a look at the Tenma.

I have a Tenma LCR which I like but have already had to re-cap.

Farnell UK Bench Multimeter Search.

https://uk.farnell.com/w/c/test-measure ... 0855_EN_GB

In a 5.5 digit the GW Instek looks to be affordable: https://uk.farnell.com/gw-instek/gdm-83 ... dp/2748504

I love my vintage Fluke 8050 and 8060s.

Re: Half decent 5.5 digit meter

Posted: Mon Dec 17, 2018 3:50 pm
by billshurv
The Instek looks good, but 5x the amount I can justify :( . I might just get a £75 solartron for now as can sell for the same in 12 months time and see how I get on with it.

The 8050 I can get for 75-100, and looks tempting. The kelvin connections on the solartron are swinging it that way for me for one of the uses I have for it.

Re: Half decent 5.5 digit meter

Posted: Mon Dec 17, 2018 4:16 pm
by mediatechnology
billshurv wrote: Mon Dec 17, 2018 3:50 pm The Instek looks good, but 5x the amount I can justify :( . I might just get a £75 solartron for now as can sell for the same in 12 months time and see how I get on with it.

The 8050 I can get for 75-100, and looks tempting. The kelvin connections on the solartron are swinging it that way for me for one of the uses I have for it.
I wasn't familiar with the Solatron and missed the price-point. It looks nice.
The one warning I would have for it, the Fluke or any other of that age is the LCD.

I bought three 8050As on ebay all for about $50-75.
One came with a bad LCD and I'm convinced it was OK when it was shipped.
It came to me on a 105 degree day and the UPS truck it was in was maybe 120 or more.
I ended up paying the seller a reduced price for it and robbed a display from a worse unit to rebuild it.

There's a lot to be said for the Kelvin connections though you can sort of make up for it using the relative function.
The 8050A's dB function is very useful and its wide enough bandwidth to be useful.

Re: Half decent 5.5 digit meter

Posted: Mon Dec 17, 2018 4:56 pm
by billshurv
Well this might start me on a slippy slope. I've bodged along with a couple of cheap and nasty hand helds for long enough now, so two meters would be better than one. An 8050A is also added to the hunt list on ebay to see what comes up.

Course if I had the space I would really like an HP 3456A for the memories of when I first used one and was wowed (ok I was young and easily impressed). But 19" rack behemoths I have no room for sadly.

Re: Half decent 5.5 digit meter

Posted: Wed Jan 02, 2019 7:05 pm
by billshurv
£42+shipping later I have a Solartron 7150. I've noted it doesn't have a very low Ohms range which will limit one job I have for it, but I can live with that for now. I need some other test stuff first.

Re: Half decent 5.5 digit meter

Posted: Sat Jan 05, 2019 12:13 pm
by Gold
I’m really liking the Fluke 287 that Fluke repaired for free. I forgot it can display two measurements at once. Having it set on dBM and frequency is very useful. It’s nice to know you are measuring the input tone and not hum. dBM is technically dBu because you can set the reference load. I have it set to 10k. I thought that might be a little low but it matches the AP well so must be okay.

Re: Half decent 5.5 digit meter

Posted: Sun Jan 20, 2019 9:23 am
by mediatechnology
Not enough digits or dBm but it has a flashlight: https://www.elektor.com/peaktech-3445-t ... 95b2345091

And Bluetooth with a SmartPhone display.

Re: Half decent 5.5 digit meter

Posted: Sun Jan 20, 2019 12:09 pm
by Gold
One of the best things about a Fluke is that the continuity tester is sensitive and has very low latency. I’ve noticed that with cheaper meters the sensitivity and latency can be much worse. It’s nice to be able to rake a probe over a multipin connector and hear a beap.