Whether you only dabble in electronics as a hobby or it’s your full-time job, there are few tools as indispensable as the multimeter. In fact, we’d be willing to bet nearly everyone rea…
Cool as hell but… this has no utility outside of poops and giggles/memes.
Handheld multimeters are one of those things that were “solved” probably over 20 years ago at this point. Even a crappy local hardware store white label is going to handle all the auto-ranging and safety factors for “Oops, I forgot to change which plugs I was using” things that used to cost a pretty penny.
Also… 99.999999999999% of handheld multimeter use is continuity testing. Yes, I pulled that number out of my ass but I would wager money I am underestimating it, if anything. But for the granularity of voltage and current testing? You don’t actually need anything that fancy for anything you would use a handheld multimeter for.
And as for the cases where specific voltages and currents ARE required? You are almost definitely using a proper bench top power supply and oscilloscope at that point.
If you are doing “house work” you want that to either be 0 volts or mains voltage… at which point you then go flip the breaker so that it is down to 0.
If you are doing finer grain work on electronics? You want to spend money on a proper power supply LONG before you spend money on a good multimeter.
Capacitance of a capacitor
If it is a loose component, you can literally read that off the cap itself. If it is something you are taking out of an existing device as part of a repair?
You will pretty quickly learn that by the time you care enough to clip a cap and measure it to replace it it is probably already degraded (if not having already popped) and this is a recipe for repeat customers.
Resistive testing on motors and various places on a circuit
And how often are people doing that when it is not literally their job (or hobby)?
Which gets back to: 99.99999999999999999% of handheld multimeter use really is just continuity testing… even if they don’t realize that is actually what they are doing.
Obviously there are niche cases. Those people may have a reason to spend the big bucks (they at least have reason enough to tell them they have a reason…). They are far from the norm.
And, don’t get me wrong: I think anyone who can justify it should, at the very least, get a halfway decent fluke. The handfeel of those are near perfection and I often do use one in conjunction with a power supply or even an oscilloscope. But it very much gets into the realization that, for many tools, the higher end ones are just about hand feel or being a “badge of honor”.
I feel bad that I forgot the name but I was going down a 3d printing rabbit hole a few weeks back and a “maker” did a comparison of digital calipers. And he definitely showed benefits to getting the higher end ones (mostly not having to close them and tare them before using). But he also raised the very good point that even the hardware store chinesium ones weren’t THAT much less precise than his really nice top of the line ones. And at that level of precision, you aren’t using hand calipers anyway.
But also? He is a youtuber and a business owner. People think less of people who use the super dirt cheap tools and that can translate to fewer views and even potentially lost clients who decide he “isn’t serious” because his calipers aren’t the right brand.
There is a lot of residential work thats not just 0V or 110/120V. If you are doing any work on your HVAC system you will see 24V, 0-10V analog signals. And you can’t just turn the furnace or AC off if you want to troubleshoot some electrical issues.
I’m going to warn anyone reading this thread away from the ones sold by harbor freight. They work okay at first, but they suck for forgetting to power them off. My last one is registering voltage at about 40%.
Professionally, a cheap digital multimeter will be fine in most aspects. I would say $15-20 Is fine. If you are doing deep circuit troubleshooting then you might want to consider something like a fluke.
Cool as hell but… this has no utility outside of poops and giggles/memes.
Handheld multimeters are one of those things that were “solved” probably over 20 years ago at this point. Even a crappy local hardware store white label is going to handle all the auto-ranging and safety factors for “Oops, I forgot to change which plugs I was using” things that used to cost a pretty penny.
Also… 99.999999999999% of handheld multimeter use is continuity testing. Yes, I pulled that number out of my ass but I would wager money I am underestimating it, if anything. But for the granularity of voltage and current testing? You don’t actually need anything that fancy for anything you would use a handheld multimeter for.
And as for the cases where specific voltages and currents ARE required? You are almost definitely using a proper bench top power supply and oscilloscope at that point.
I’m just over here using my cheap multimeter to determine if my appliances are trying to cheat me or if the batteries are actually empty
"Is that stripe on this resister red or orange? 120 or 1200 ohms?
I used to work in an electronics repair depot and there were several use cases for the other features.
Current voltage on a line.
Capacitance of a capacitor
Diode testing
Resistive testing on motors and various places on a circuit
If you are doing “house work” you want that to either be 0 volts or mains voltage… at which point you then go flip the breaker so that it is down to 0.
If you are doing finer grain work on electronics? You want to spend money on a proper power supply LONG before you spend money on a good multimeter.
If it is a loose component, you can literally read that off the cap itself. If it is something you are taking out of an existing device as part of a repair?
You will pretty quickly learn that by the time you care enough to clip a cap and measure it to replace it it is probably already degraded (if not having already popped) and this is a recipe for repeat customers.
And how often are people doing that when it is not literally their job (or hobby)?
Which gets back to: 99.99999999999999999% of handheld multimeter use really is just continuity testing… even if they don’t realize that is actually what they are doing.
Obviously there are niche cases. Those people may have a reason to spend the big bucks (they at least have reason enough to tell them they have a reason…). They are far from the norm.
And, don’t get me wrong: I think anyone who can justify it should, at the very least, get a halfway decent fluke. The handfeel of those are near perfection and I often do use one in conjunction with a power supply or even an oscilloscope. But it very much gets into the realization that, for many tools, the higher end ones are just about hand feel or being a “badge of honor”.
I feel bad that I forgot the name but I was going down a 3d printing rabbit hole a few weeks back and a “maker” did a comparison of digital calipers. And he definitely showed benefits to getting the higher end ones (mostly not having to close them and tare them before using). But he also raised the very good point that even the hardware store chinesium ones weren’t THAT much less precise than his really nice top of the line ones. And at that level of precision, you aren’t using hand calipers anyway.
But also? He is a youtuber and a business owner. People think less of people who use the super dirt cheap tools and that can translate to fewer views and even potentially lost clients who decide he “isn’t serious” because his calipers aren’t the right brand.
There is a lot of residential work thats not just 0V or 110/120V. If you are doing any work on your HVAC system you will see 24V, 0-10V analog signals. And you can’t just turn the furnace or AC off if you want to troubleshoot some electrical issues.
None of which is a particular stress test for even a bargain bin multimeter you got at the kroger.
I’m going to warn anyone reading this thread away from the ones sold by harbor freight. They work okay at first, but they suck for forgetting to power them off. My last one is registering voltage at about 40%.
Professionally, a cheap digital multimeter will be fine in most aspects. I would say $15-20 Is fine. If you are doing deep circuit troubleshooting then you might want to consider something like a fluke.