Digital Multimeter vs Analogue Multimeter

Pros and cons?

I have both. To tell you the truth, the analog one I purchased mostly out of nostalgia. I found it brand new on an alleyway in Akihabara, and it was the only one remaining “made in Japan”.

I only use the analog to see voltage or current fluctuations and don’t want to power up the scope. The analog one also has a battery test function which provides a moderate load to the battery under test and thus provides a more realistic value than a hi-z reading.

For the 99.8% of the other measurement requirements, the DMM wins hands down.

Hi, thanks. " only use the analog to see voltage or current fluctuations " Yes have read is useful for that,

Some of the digital meters (e.g. Fluke) have a bar graph in addition to the digital readout, whose purpose is to show fluctuations like an analog meter.

OK thanks, any idea if there are any decent cheaper clones of the fluke with this feature?

ZeusMC said:

OK thanks, any idea if there are any decent cheaper clones of the fluke with this feature?

Click to expand...

Plenty as far as I'm aware - I don't think Fluke were even the first to do it?.

Anyone give me more info, models on this? I have from many years ago, a Maplin Precision Gold Professional Analogue Multimeter Model M-2020, with transistor tester. Hardly used it, like new, great meter, good Maplin quality.Also recently bought a UNI-T UT61 digital meter, lot of good user reviews including YouTubes, very chunky substantial meter. Only asked original question, out of curiosity

ZeusMC said:

OK thanks, any idea if there are any decent cheaper clones of the fluke with this feature?

Click to expand...

An Amazon search came up with a few.

The big question is:
"What is your budget?"

Googling "Analog multimeter for sale" produced this:


Looking in to Ebay produced this:


The Vc 5080 looks like a reasonable meter, but I have no direct experience.

Old engineer reminiscing mode= ON
Many years ago the multimeter of (my) choice was the AVO Model 8, it did most things I required.
Along came digital multimeters and they became the favourite "go to" item of test equipment, but the good old AVO 8 was still better for some tests, notably checking transistor junctions and watching for peaks and dips when adjusting tuned circuits.

As time went by and digital multimeters improved, they had good diode test functions and the better ones had a sufficiently fast update rate to make it possible to watch for peaks and dips when tuning.

Back to the future and on my workbench I have an all singing all dancing 5 1/2 digit bench DMM and a 3 1/2 digit (big) pocket sized DMM.
Analogue DMMs are nowhere to be seen.
Old engineer reminiscing mode= OFF

My opinion for what it is worth.

JimB

Thanks JimB but I was looking for less expensive clones of the Fluke digital multimeter that have a bar graph as well as a digital display.

Just having a quick look on Amazon, digital multimeter with bar graph. This came up, 2 in 1 Intelligent Digital Oscilloscope Multimeter Upgraded Analog Bar Graph 200k High-Speed A/D Sampling https://www.amazon.co.uk/Intelligen...timeter+with+bar+graph&qid=1613587116&sr=8-23., not looked at spec but wouldn't want to pay 93 quid.

Not after a scope
Has no reviews, for what ...might be worth I've known about fake Amazon reviews for sometime. The other night, BBC news online, reading about people selling Amazon fake reviews..... wholesale, one was I think 8,000 fake reviews for a ridiculous amount of money. I thought Amazon were supposed to be cracking down on it, seems not. Sorry about bold type, copied and pasted into notepad, still came out same as Wordpad.

Can get from China Ebay inc post £56, when they can locate a shipping container.

These all appear to have analog scales?
**broken link removed**

**broken link removed**

EEVBlog on YouTube has videos of a lot of meyer comparisons.

When choosing a meter think about the features you may want or need be it analog or digital. I still prefer checking transistors using my old Simpson 260. You also want to consider uncertainty, how accurate do you want a meter to be. Then there is also resolution even a good meter like a Simpson 270 with a mirror back scale will not afford the resolution of a good DMM. How about the AC measuring response? Would you like average responding RMS indicating or a true RMS responding RMS indicating meter? I doubt you will find the latter in a low priced analog meter.

Oh yes and of course Budget. Be it analog of digital. A Simpson 260, still in production, is a between $300 and $350 USD or more analog meter. No shortage of things to consider.

Ron

OK thanks, rjenkinsgb, Visitor, and Reloadron.