Hey guys I’m building the mfos voltage quantizer, got it built and it’s working but I need to tune the voltage steps to be as close to 0.08333v apart as possible. My cheapo harbor freight $5 meter is not cutting it.
There seems to be a vast gap between the cheapos and the $600+ Fluke meters. I’m a tool guy and take care of them so don’t mind getting quality that will last but that seems a bit much. What do you guys use? Or what would you get now If you needed a new one?
As of now I’m leaning towards a Klein that’s about 75usd
Harbor Freight’s Cen-Tech 11 function has worked for me for several years and at $20 i can’t complain. The only thing it doesn’t do is clampereage so I got the Ames AC/DC after the last clamp I had died. It’s already lasted longer than the non-HFT meter it replaced. If you want to drop the cash, Fluke really is kind of the IBM of meters though .
I’m have a few Aneng AN800x meters that I’m superhappy with. Convenient size, huge digits, very good price/performance. eevblog reviews one here:
I haven’t watched the video since I bought my first, but judging from the comments he complains about it in a way that made a lot of people go buy one asap, and seems it worked that way on me too (eevblog has their own line of $200 multimeters so let’s just say he has very specific opinions).
Their official Aliexpress store is here where the AN8008 costs $14 at the moment, but you can also get them from Banggood and Amazon and probably others, with various price/shipping tradeoffs.
I do also have a couple HF meters kicking around here. Including one old school analog one. Very cheap but sometimes you need analog.
The HF digital one I think cost $7 and I used it once, after the identical previous one developed a problem. I wish I’d taken a picture, but I was using it one day and looked down and discovered both leads had about 1/4" of bare wire before the meter-end plug — the insulation had failed and separated on both without my noticing. I think I ordered my AstroAI that very evening but to get me through the couple of days before it arrived, I went to HF and bought another one.
In doing my research to choose what to buy I found at least one forum post where someone said “I use the cheap HF ones, when one breaks I buy another one, still cheaper than Fluke”
I think I paid 3 or 4 dollars for mine. It measures the resistances of 0.1% resistors dead on, but only one decimal place and kinda jumps around a bit if it’s close to rounding up or down. I got my quantizer close to being in tune today but I can still hear it’s not quite right. I’m hoping getting the voltage steps to 0.083 instead of “just below 0.1” will get me on point or tell me if I have another problem
They are similar in size, shape, colour, format. But the fluke is vastly better. Things like the time it takes to get a resistance reading are easy to tell apart…
Of course it is helpful to have a precise voltmeter at hand, but if you go for several decimal places, then you need to have a good look not only at the voltmeter but also at how you are measuring.
I’ve been using a Klaasing Electronics M3500 for 40 years now. Works like a charm (alas it seems it is not being sold anymore). So this speaks for buying good once and be assured of good quality for a long time. But I needed a second meter now and then, so I also have a dirt cheap DT-182 from ALI, prob 10 USD or so (actually the batteries are more expensive!), which I use on the side and recently bought a Etekcity MSR C600, because I wanted to have a clamp meter to measure AC currents.
May I be so bold and suggest instead of buying an somewhat expensive multi meter, you buy a relatively cheap and good one and an cheap oscilloscope as well like the one several people on the forum are using:
They are very cheap and give you so much more insight in what is happening in a circuit than a voltmeter can do! Or invest in a bit more expensive one like the OWON SDS1102 that gets good reviews ( given its price ):
I think you mean ‘not objective’. Well the problem is that the ear is subjective, but then again being of a western upbringing there are only so many musical scales I learned to like during my upbringing and don’t consider to be out of tune. But given a human ear’s sensitivity to change in pitch, if you tune at a mid range key, you should be fine. Heck, piano’s are tuned by ear. And piano players often are very finicky about these matters.
Im not sure if you misunderstood me, i was saying that many people would have difficulty finding a reference pitch without at least one thing being in tune. If you do then thats fine. Also, depending on who you are you might tune things wrong anyways. There are many non-unison/octave intervals that someone could elect to tune to that sounds “right” only because harmony sounds good.
Im not saying you cant tune by ear, thats what we use to listen to music anyways. Im just saying a novice could tune things in a way that will leave them displeased very easily which assistance as i mentioned would mitigate.
“automatic range multi-function digital multimeter […] with true rms measurement, LCD display, adjustable backlight brightness, clear reading, clock, alarm clock, bluetooth audio, ambient temperature display.”
Yes, it’s a combination bench multimeter, bluetooth speaker, and alarm clock. Perfect for any electronics DIYers bedside table.
(Unfortunately it doesn’t have line in, otherwise I’d consider getting one for the workbench.)
(eevblog has their own line of $200 multimeters so let’s just say he has very specific opinions).
